December 22, 2021
You can now take a pill to treat symptoms of Covid19. The FDA has just approved Pfizer’s pill under emergency use authorization.
The pill is called Paxlovid and it’s available by prescription only.
So, who is eligible to take this pill?
The FDA says you can take the pill if:
- You have just received a positive Covid19 test
- If you’re over the age of 12 and weigh more than 88 pounds.
- Your symptoms are mild-to-moderate
- But you are at high risk of developing a severe case of Covid19.
The FDA says it’s best to take the pill as soon as possible after diagnosis and within five days of symptom onset. If you get a prescription, you’ll take 3 tablets together twice a day for five days. That’s a total of 30 tablets.
The pill is not authorized for pre-exposure or post-exposure prevention of Covid19 and the FDA very clearly says the pill is not a substitute for the vaccine.
The FDA says possible side effects may include… impairment of sense of taste, high blood pressure and muscle aches and may lead to drug resistance for those with HIV. The pill is not recommended for those with kidney or severe liver impairment.
As always – we now wait for the CDC to either approve or deny this emergency use authorization but we are expecting that approval to come before the end of the week.
You may remember when I told you in late November in this video – that Merck’s Covid19 pill called Molnupiravir was narrowly approved by the FDA’s independent advisory panel. Well, as of today – FDA and CDC have not yet given Molnupiravir the final EUA approval.
Read the EUA from the FDA here.
PLUS
Guys! If you are one of the 41 million people with a federal student loan – you need to watch this video.
The President just pushed back your payments, froze the interest rate at zero and stopped collections for another 90 days. That means – you won’t have to start repaying those federal student loans until May 1st of 2022 instead of January 31st.
Let me be clear – this is not student loan forgiveness. This just another extension of the student loan forbearance program that you’ve been getting since 2020. The President said he’s doing this because student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need more time to start repaying.
But he also said – yes – those repayments will start again. He said borrowers should use this extension to look at options to lower your payments through income-based repayment plans and explore public service loan forgiveness options.
So if you qualified before, you will qualify again. And if you want to look at those repayment options you can find more information at studentaid.gov
Read about this program from the Department of Education here.
Read about the President’s announcement here.
