The issue here isn't that one side was correct, or one side was wrong. The issue here is that both sides talking points were barely even touched the actual results. You're right, "hcq works" was independent of the scientific work done then. However, "HCQ doesn't work" was the same. The reason we had those studies in the first place is because preliminary work showed some promise, and researchers decided to dig in to confirm this. What many people don't know is that the biomedical scientific process is fraught with false starts and failures to replicate. The results are subsequently slow.

At that time, the only responsible answer, and the answer that any biomedical scientist with integrity would give is: "Early results show X, though further follow up studies would be needed to replicate these results to confirm their validity"

But that's not what we got. What we got was a binary split between miracle cure and worse than homeopathy, depending on which side of the political divide you were on.