Drug companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have announced the results of the latest round of tests on their oral COVID-19 pill. The data evidently shows a reduction in hospital stays and deaths for up to 50% of the trial participants. Emergency Use Authorization for molnupiravir is now being sought. If that approval is granted, this will become the first antiviral oral treatment for the coronavirus. But what does this mean for the and COVID regulations that are being enforced worldwide?
Amesh Adalja, at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that “An oral antiviral that can impact hospitalization risk to such a degree would be game changing,” and that the present treatments being used are “cumbersome and logistically challenging to administer. A simple oral pill would be the opposite of that.”
A simple course of pills that can cut risk of serious illness by half will be welcomed by many in the health field, especially as a number of hospitals face severe staffing shortages due to refusing to be vaccinated. However, with an apparently successful treatment concluding stage three trials, and other treatments from various drug manufacturers not far behind, how long before people start questioning the efficacy and point of vaccine mandates. Ivermectin anyone?