When Detroit State Rep. Karen Whitsett and her husband began feeling ill on March 17, alarm bells went off. The United States, after all, was far enough into the pandemic when just a sneeze was enough to scare the most stoic American.

But the representative’s symptoms were much more than a sneeze. She told the Free Press in an interview on Monday that in March, she was experiencing shortness of breath, swollen lymph nodes, a headache and what felt like a sinus infection.

What we are learning about the coronavirus since it’s arrival in the U.S. is that symptoms can be relatively mild for the first week. But it’s often in the second week that the illness can escalate, usually on the 8th to 10th day after symptoms begin. That’s when respiratory distress begins for some people, many of whom go on to need critical care.

When Whitsett ended up in the hospital, she had recently watched President Trump on television during one of his daily task force briefings where he had mentioned the combination drug therapy of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azythromycin. Trump was touting a French study and anecdotal reports from China and doctors in the U.S. that the drug combination was a game changer. Severely sick people were being cured from the virus without needing ventilation at all.

Rep. Whitsett, who is a Democrat, remembered this snippet from the task force briefing and insisted to her doctors that she be allowed to try the drugs. Unfortunately, the state of Michigan was restricting their use, along with several other states like Nevada and New York because there hadn’t yet been a “controlled study.”

Restricting these drugs was very confusing to Dr. Stephen Smith, founder of the Smith Center for Infectious Diseases and Urban Health. He had recently treated nearly 100 patients with the drugs and he spoke of the therapy’s success on a Fox television show. He pointed out that not a single COVID-19 patient of his that has been on the regimen for five days or more had to be intubated.

Another doctor, Vladimir Zelenko of New York City, also insisted he’d treated hundreds of patients with the drug cocktail-some who even had mild or moderate symptoms when they arrived-and said 100-percent of them had survived without serious illness or the need for a ventilator.

And Dr. Anthony Cardillo, an emergency room specialist also has been prescribing the combination of drugs to patients experiencing severe symptoms. “Every patient I’ve prescribed it to has been very, very ill and within 8 to 12 hours, they were basically symptom-free,” Cardillo said in an interview with KABC-TV. “So, clinically I am seeing a resolution.”

Rep. Whitsett wanted the drug therapy, but it was nearly impossible to get a prescription in Michigan. Her husband, who was increasingly distraught over his wife’s worsening condition, moved heaven and earth to get his wife the drugs, insisting they have been in use around the world for many decades for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and malaria, and their safety had been well established. Not only that, but according to Dr. Smith, the worst side effect he’d encountered had been a rash in one patient.

Whitsett got the drugs.

“It was less than two hours” before she started to feel relief, said Whitsett in the Free Press interview.

This is not a story about Donald Trump. It’s a story about the drug protocol that is saving lives all over the world. And it’s a story about how our own press and politicians are downplaying it.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters tweeted this on Monday: “Do not listen to 45 when he suggests untested #Hydroxychloroquine to treat #COVID19.”

She is just one of many politicians, newspapers and media outlets to make light of the success of this drug therapy, but it’s probably too late for them to be politicizing the drugs’ success. A poll last week conducted by the global health care polling company Sermo, showed doctors all over the country, indeed all over the world, were prescribing the drug combination. And now people who have more severe cases of the virus are demanding it.

Plenty of drugs, by the way, are used “off-label,” which simply means a drug is being used for something other than it was originally created to treat. A simple search online will show this is very common.

I tell you this because it’s important that you be informed. It should be up to you and your doctor how to treat coronavirus in the event you are diagnosed and experience a more severe case. It’s not up to the state. It’s not up to the media. It’s up to you and to your doctor.

As I write this, the U.S. has sent a team of doctors to treat Boris Johnson, the U.K. Prime Minister. I am certain they will use this drug protocol to try to cure him, as he is now in intensive care at a London hospital and by now, word of these drugs’ success has spread far and wide.

I hope it’s not too late for Johnson.

Take care all. Stay informed.