Could There Be a Non-Vaccine COVID Cure?

Could There Be a Non-Vaccine COVID Cure?
Molly Jong-Fast
The Daily Beast
Fri, September 17, 2021, 1:48 AM

There could be another line of defense against COVID-19 on the medical horizon—one that doesn’t involve taking horse medication or even vaccine boosters.

According to Scott Gottlieb, author of Uncontrolled Spread, former FDA commissioner, and a member of Pfizer’s board of directors, there are three promising pills in development to help treat COVID like “Tamiflu for influenza,” he tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Of course, vaccines are the best way to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent serious infection and hospitalization, but the more protection, the better.

“So if you’re exposed to COVID, you could take a pill and it can prevent you or reduce your chances of getting COVID,” explains Gottlieb. “There are three that are in more advanced development: a drug by Pfizer, in phase three studies, a drug by Merck, which looks very promising, also in phase three studies, and another one by Roche that’s a little further behind any one of these drugs.”

It sounds great, but we still have to deal with the surging Delta variant, and that means getting more people, and kids, vaccinated. When is that going to happen? Molly wants to know. Gottlieb projects later this fall. He also doesn’t think we should be too invested in the Biden administration sending vaccines overseas.

“They’re going to want to hedge against the unknown, you know, a new variant coming alongside the population. So as a matter of national security, the doses that have been secured by the administration are going to be kept by the administration.”