Antiviral pills for Covid-19 -- not a cure, but a great tool
CNN
A pill to treat Covid -- Pfizer and Merck both generated excitement with news they have pills that could help keep people out of the hospital if they catch coronavirus.
Pfizer says its pill, which it proposes to sell under the brand name Paxlovid if it gets authorized, reduced the risk of death or hospitalization by 89% in people who got it within three days of symptoms starting. Merck says its capsule molnupiravir reduced the risk by about 50%.
Neither is a cure, and they don't work like antibiotics do against bacterial infections. But doctors say easy-to-take antivirals can be important additions to hospital-based treatments such as monoclonal antibodies, the infused antiviral remdesivir and immune system modulators. They might help cut death rates from a virus that's killed 750,000 people in the United States alone.
A CIA assessment circulated among US officials this week concluded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likely judges he can get away without defining a post-war plan — even as the Biden administration has launched a full-court press to pressure him to bring an end to the conflict in Gaza.