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Opinion
Lisa Jarvis

Doctors Are Still Flying Blind With Paxlovid

As more Covid patients take the antivirals, US researchers should take the opportunity to find out exactly who benefits.

One million prescriptions in the US.

One million prescriptions in the US.

Photographer: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg
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In the month since I last wrote about the dearth of data on Paxlovid’s benefit for vaccinated and younger Covid-19 patients, infections have soared and prescriptions of the antiviral have skyrocketed. As of June 1, more than 1 million courses of the drug have been administered in the US.

Roughly one-third of these pill packs have been prescribed just since May 17. At this point, nearly half of all Covid patients are taking antivirals, mostly Pfizer’s Paxlovid, Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat estimates.