Another Covid Christmas

Here we go again. Another Covid Christmas. We had hoped we would be out of the woods by now, but instead the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus is spreading quickly, perhaps more quickly than any disease, ever. The warnings are dire. Some predict 500,000 new cases per day by January, threatening to further overwhelm hospitals already facing shortages of beds and staff. Our health care workers are already exhausted. There may be hope on the horizon. Pfizer has won FDA approval for the first at-home treatment for Covid in the form of a pill. It seems to be effective, with trials showing it reduced the rates of hospitalization or death in high-risk patients by 89%. The problem is, like about everything else these days, supply. Pfizer says it will only be able to produce 180,000 doses this year. That is not enough, given the U.S. averages about 100,000 Covid cases per day. That is why the Biden administration should reach out to other drug manufacturers to have them start producing this new pill as well. The government could even buy the patent for this new treatment in the interest of the public good and ramp up production. These are grim times, and getting the pill to those who won’t get a shot may be our best hope.