Antivirals will deal the final blow to Covid-19

The UK has become the first country to approve Merck’s oral antiviral treatment, lagevrio (molnupiravir). This treatment, and others on the horizon, will be game changers in the fight against Covid-19.

Lagevrio can be taken at home in the early stages of the virus, unlike costly antibody treatments used at later stages in hospitals. It was found in a phase 3 clinical trial to reduce hospitalisation by 50 per cent among vulnerable people. The good news doesn’t stop there. On Friday, Pfizer announced that its Covid-19 antiviral, paxlovid, reduces hospitalisation by 89 per cent. In both studies, there were no deaths among those who received the antiviral, compared with eight and 10 deaths respectively among those who received placebos.

The virus is still amongst us. More than 9,000 people with Covid remain in UK hospitals, putting a strain on the NHS and fuelling clamours for “Plan B” or authoritarian lockdowns. Covid continues to result in thousands of “excess deaths”, largely among those who are unwilling or incapable of taking a vaccine, and those whose weaker immune system has not responded effectively to the vaccine. Antiviral treatments could save many thousands of lives and render further restrictions pointless.

But there’s a problem. The UK has secured just 480,000 courses of molnupiravir and 250,000 doses of paxlovid. If given to everyone who tested positive for Covid-19, we would run out in about two weeks, which would mean reserving treatment for those most at risk. Even then, there would not be enough for everyone who could be hospitalised. There will be logistical challenges, too. Vulnerable people will have to be quickly identified and couriered the drugs, since their effectiveness wanes with time. The NHS, which last year struggled to distribute protective equipment, should consider using Amazon’s logistics network.

Our sluggish procurement of antivirals stands in stark contrast to Kate Bingham’s heroic vaccine task force. By the time vaccine clinical-trial results were released, the UK already had enough orders to vaccinate the entire population. The dazzling potential of antiviral treatments should not come as a shock. In September, a paper by the Adam Smith Institute recommended investing in both lagevrio and paxlovid. We also recommended fluvoxamine, a lowcost SSRI that reduces hospitalisation risk according to one recent study, and next-generation vaccine technologies such as oral/nasal and “universal” pancoronavirus vaccines.

It’s not too late to invest in these and other treatments, which could deliver the final killing blow to Covid-19. The Government should throw the kitchen sink at it. They should also allow people to privately purchase these drugs, thereby saving the taxpayer and increasing production.

Covid is fast becoming a treatable, uninteresting – even run-of-the-mill virus. Yet reaching this endpoint will mean embracing the latest miracles of modern science.