Right-wing outlets have covered the drug hydroxychloroquine, touted by President Trump as a COVID-19 cure, significantly more often than left-wing outlets, forging a partisan divide which mirrors the politicized focus on the drug in parts of the US government and feeding into existing confusion about potential coronavirus cures.

While there are not yet any proven remedies to COVID-19, misinformation about possible cures has proliferated as the pandemic continues. President Trump and Trump appointees have continued to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential panacea, despite murkiness about the drug’s efficacy in treating the new coronavirus. Scientists and public health experts — including National Institutes of Health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci — say that clinical trials are necessary to make robust conclusions about the drug’s efficacy. While anecdotal evidence and limited trials in France and China point to possible success in treating COVID-19 patients, others have been inconclusive. Meanwhile, a recent study in Brazil ended early due to safety issues, as some patients in the study experienced dangerous heart problems.

Disproportionate focus on hydroxychloroquine over other possible coronavirus cures has impacted the search for a remedy: after a March 21 tweet by President Trump praising hydroxychloroquine, the proportion of COVID-19 drug trials studying hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus ballooned from one in 10 to one in three.

A DFRLab analysis of over 9,500 coronavirus-related articles published by 22 left-wing and right-wing news outlets since March 18, 2020 uncovered partisan differences in both coverage and engagement of hydroxychloroquine articles. The analysis was done using data from BuzzSumo, a media monitoring tool. March 18 marked the first mention of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in the 22 news outlets. The partisan status of media outlets was determined using AllSides’ media bias chart.

The DFRLab analysis used the outlets in the leftmost and rightmost columns, circled in yellow. The Daily Mail was excluded from the analysis, since the focus was American outlets, as were the “opinion” divisions. (Source: AllSides)

Among this sample of partisan outlets, right-wing outlets shared more hydroxychloroquine stories than left-wing outlets, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of daily coronavirus coverage. Notably, almost every day from April 1 to April 15 there were more stories mentioning hydroxychloroquine in right-wing outlets than in left-wing ones.