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in Canada — if we can roll it out fast enough!!!!,,,,,,News headline!!!! https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pfizer-pill-paxlovid-canada-covid-19-rollout-hospitalization-1.6318097
After Canada approved a new treatment for COVID-19, Pfizer's highly effective oral therapeutic Paxlovid, experts are hopeful the highly sought after pill can help control a devastating Omicron-driven surge — if it's rolled out fast enough.
"I think it will be an effective tool in high-risk individuals if they can get tested quick enough to be able to be in the window for therapeutic benefit," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.
"If you can get it to people fast enough to keep them from needing hospitalizations, then that basically solves the major problem that we're facing."
But questions remain as to whether the provinces and territories will be able to get the drug out to sick, vulnerable Canadians within the recommended five-day window, helping to ease the pressure on hospitals until current COVID-19 levels subside.
"Obviously this is a very promising development, but there's still some work that lies ahead," Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician and member of Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force, told CBC News Network on Monday.
"That's fantastic we've crossed that first step. We also now, of course, need to distribute it to the provinces and to have the provinces work out how it's actually going to be administered."