It’s folk medicine, i’ll admit, but before the CCP Virus hit, I had to travel on airplanes for work at least twice a week.
I started vitamin C and Zinc supplementation and went from getting colds all the time, to never getting a cold.
Purely anecdotal, but lots of folks swear by the stuff.
Viruses replicate inside of human cells. Zinc can interfere with replication if it gets inside of cells, but without an ionophore zinc apparently can’t cross the cell membrane. HCQ is an ionophore. Quercetin, a flavonoid, may also be an ionophore and it’s found in a number of foods.
Zinc supplements probably aren’t as significant as having an ionophore to allow it to work. If you were getting quercetin in your diet that may have helped as much if not more than the zinc.