hours of friday, october 2nd. and we reported that president trump as you heard the nice man say on television had tested positive for covid. back with us tonight, michael osterholm, the director for the center of infectious disease and policy. also an advisor to the covid transition team as they were taking ownership of this pandemic, as you might say. and michael, first and foremost, i want to hear you out on this oral medication, this pill from merck. there's a concern already that it's going to be seen as some kind of vaccine substitute, but what is it, what might it do. >> first of all, it's good news and now the first of several drugs coming out that are simple pill, what we call small molecule drugs. and in this case in the merck study it was actually halted early because the results were