Unfortunately, a lot of patients didn’t actually have many options and were prescribed it without asking. In the early days of the pandemic, doctors were basically just throwing everything they could at it, to see what worked. If you got a conservative doctor, there was a good chance that you’d be prescribed it without ever asking for it.
Because all the doctors were flying blind, but hey the news says this drug works so we might as well try it. They’re probably going to die without treatment anyways, so worst case scenario the result is the same as if they weren’t taking it. Nowhere to go but up, right? A lot of patients basically didn’t have a say, because they were hospitalized.