The antivirals taskforce that could keep Covid patients out of hospital

If the Omicron death count falls short of the 6,000 a day envisaged by the gloomier Sage scenarios, it could be for many reasons. It might be because the variant is milder or because the vaccines offer strong protection — but there’s something else that seldom gets much notice. Britain has placed the world’s biggest per person order for new antiviral drugs that can be given to help those who have Covid and vastly reduce the scope for hospitalisation and death.

The scheme will target the 1.3 million people who are regarded as especially vulnerable to Covid for a whole bunch of reasons (and who tend to account for most of the death toll). They may be healthy but very old. They may be young but have had a kidney transplant, and are therefore taking immune-suppressing drugs which make them vulnerable to the virus. Everyone on this list has been sent an at-home PCR test, ready to use if they feel ill. If they test positive, then the idea is to send around antiviral pills — Merck’s molnupiravir or Pfizer’s Paxlovid — as quickly as possible.

This is the work of the little-known antivirals taskforce run by Eddie Gray, a former senior executive at GlaxoSmithKline. The project aims to ensure that more Covid patients can be handled by their GPs instead of being admitted to hospital. This can be done, runs the argument, if those who are most likely to get seriously ill are identified and put first in line for new drugs intended to stop them needing hospital help.

‘Antivirals are very much a part of living with Covid,’ says Gray. ‘The likelihood is that living with Covid is an understanding that some people are going to be infected in winter periods.