An experimental pill from Merck was shown in a trial to cut the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and death in half, the company has announced.
The drugmaker said Friday that in a trial, those who received its pill to treat COVID-19, molnupiravir, within five days of experiencing symptoms had half the rate of hospitalization and death as patients who received a placebo, The Associated Press reports. According to Merck, the rate of hospitalizations or deaths was 7.3 percent among those patients who received molnupiravir compared to 14.1 percent for the placebo group.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
5 educational cartoons about the Harvard pushbackCartoons Artists take on academic freedom, institutional resistance, and more
-
One-pan black chickpeas with baharat and orange recipeThe Week Recommends This one-pan dish offers bold flavours, low effort and minimum clean up
-
Merz's coalition deal: a 'betrayal' of Germany?Talking Point With liberalism, freedom and democracy under threat globally, it's a time for 'giants' – but this is a 'coalition of the timid'
-
Scientists find hint of alien life on distant worldSpeed Read NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected a possible signature of life on planet K2-18b
-
Katy Perry, Gayle King visit space on Bezos rocketSpeed Read Six well-known women went into lower orbit for 11 minutes
-
Scientists map miles of wiring in mouse brainSpeed Read Researchers have created the 'largest and most detailed wiring diagram of a mammalian brain to date,' said Nature
-
Scientists genetically revive extinct 'dire wolves'Speed Read A 'de-extinction' company has revived the species made popular by HBO's 'Game of Thrones'
-
Dark energy may not doom the universe, data suggestsSpeed Read The dark energy pushing the universe apart appears to be weakening
-
Why some people remember dreams and others don'tUnder The Radar Age, attitude and weather all play a part in dream recall
-
Pharaoh's tomb discovered for first time in 100 yearsSpeed Read This is the first burial chamber of a pharaoh unearthed since Tutankhamun in 1922
-
Scientists report optimal method to boil an eggSpeed Read It takes two temperatures of water to achieve and no fancy gadgets
