‘We have waited a long time for this moment,’ White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said.

There have been over 1 million U.S. deaths from COVID-19, and a fresh variant daily is hospitalizing over 100,000 Americans and killing more than 300.

When administered within five days of symptoms appearing, the antiviral drug Paxlovid has been proven to bring a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe COVID-19.