so having only enough drugs to treat 65,000 people is really not much. and it s not going to ramp up all that fast either. for the whole month of january, for example, pfizer s only expecting to be able to deliver enough pills to treat 200,000 people. again, that sounds like a lot, but we re getting more than that many people infected every day now. so it s really not nearly enough. eventually, getting into february, march, april, later into the year, pfizer will be able to deliver more, millions of doses ultimately, not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands like they re starting with. when they are able to ship millions of these pills, that really will mean that potentially thousands of american lives will be saved. this is huge. right now, though, day one of this new era in effective covid at-home treatment, today is day one of that. for right now, there s all this hope associated with this new treatment. but also all these challenges. we have to deal with really limited supply
evening to you. here in new york, average new daily covid cases are up nearly 500% in just three weeks. the demand for testing is so great, that city m.it d., a major health provider, has temporarily closed nearly 20 locations because of staffing issues. pfizer s covid pill is the first at-home treatment for coronavirus and it s a promising one. it s aimed for those who are at risk and shown to be nearly 90% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths if taken within five days of experiencing symptoms. as quickly as pfizer gets the pills manufactured and delivered, we will immediately provide them to states and jurisdictions for distribution. reporter: but there are also snags as two of the most common monoclonal antibodies treatments that doctors have depended on are unlikely to be effective against omicron. israel is now trying to get ahead of the omicron surge by approving a fourth vaccine dose for those over 60. but even as the biden
report earlier, the first at home treatment of covid has been given to patients in the uk as part of the major national study. molnupiravir will be tested on 10,000 people at risk of serious illness in research led by university of oxford. last month, the uk became the first country in the world to approve its use a move described as a game changer by health secretary sajid javid. let s speak to glyn talling. he s a quantity surveyor from cornwall and he s been taking part in the trial. thank you forjoining us on bbc news. how was the trial going? trier? news. how was the trial going? very well. i news. how was the trial going? very well- i actually news. how was the trial going? - well. i actually finished my course of medication yesterday. it is a five day course. yeah, all very straightforward, and went very well indeed. , ., indeed. tell us about the medication. indeed. tell us about the medication. what - indeed. tell us about the medication. what can - indeed. tell us abo
it gravely ill family members out of icu wards to instead bring il them home and treat them with ivermectin and other great ideas you can learn about from sports podcasters and on facebook. quote, some people in groups that formed recently to promotem the false cure of ivermectin, an anti-parasite treatment, have claimed extracting covid patients from hospitals is as pivotal so they can self-medicate at home with ivermectin, but as patients begin to realize ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatment such as gargling with iodine and inhaling hydrogen peroxide. they are calling it part of a, quote, protocol. the asthma and allergy
so the people who really do need it can get into it and can get good care rather than places being overrun and people being unable to get a bed and unable to get transferred to more advanced levels of care when they need it.rr t these are the pieces that need to fit together. not only the people we re contending with now but particularly if this omicron thing screaming down the tunnel toward us right now turns out t be a bad one, we ll need all these things. testing at home. you do it fast. you do it right away. it is not a pain. you don t put it off. you test as soon as you have anything that you think might be a symptom. hfat if you re positive, what we need access to is treatment. as soon as those treatments are approved, treatments that you could also do at home, quickly, while it s still able to do you some good. and, of course, we need, as we have from the beginning, as much vaccination as possible.