There’s an emerging new tool in the kit to fight COVID-19: anti-viral pills with great promise to make cases milder, avoiding hospitalizations and deaths.

The two antivirals — from Merck and Pfizer — are pending authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. If authorized for emergency use, the pills should largely be free to patients. But will it be easy to access them?

Lev Facher, Washington correspondent at STAT, explains.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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