Never-ending COVID-19 crisis shifts to pill form

OPINION:

For more than a year, America has listened to federal health bureaucrats talk about the efficacy of both face masks and COVID-19 vaccinations, assuring and confirming these mitigation efforts would return the country to pre-pandemic normalcy.

Not quite. But here comes the magic pill that will no doubt carry the same promises.

“Merck Says It Has First Effective Antiviral Pill for Covid,” The New York Times just wrote.

“Merck to seek emergency authorization for oral Covid treatment after ‘compelling results’ in trials,” CNBC just wrote.

Coronavirus: the gift to Big Pharma that keeps on giving.

The gift to Big Pharma and Big Pharma’s friends and allies in the political world that keeps on giving.

In May, Pfizer reported about $3.5 billion in revenues from its COVID-19 vaccine — and that was just for the first three months of the years. The company’s forecast was $26 billion for the year. And it’s not just Pfizer.

“Executives at Modern and Pfizer cashed in on the vaccine, selling shares timed precisely to clinical trial press releases,” Forbes reported in May.

The money flowed.

And in the chaos and confusion and fear and fright of the coronavirus — people are dying! People will die! — who really was paying attention to the tight and cozy, too-tight, too-cozy relationships being formed among Big Pharma, government and political circles?

Tax dollars are great, aren’t they?

“Besides the mRNA vaccines, US taxpayers had bet billions on Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and AstraZeneca, the British company,” Forbes wrote. “A year after Covid showed up in Wuhan, 200 vaccines were in trials or already in use — a world record in vaccine history.”

That’s after pharmaceuticals had spent years dwindling its research and development into breakthrough vaccines. Why? Because they weren’t profitable. Because the financial return rarely made the efforts worthwhile. Because the risk to companies’ bottom lines was too great.

Then came the coronavirus.

Then came the vaccine windfall, fueled by fear and tax dollars.

Then came the massive, massively massive multibillion-dollar profits.

Now comes the pill form.

And once again, it’s the emergency use authorization that will give wings to its sales.

“A phase 3 trial of Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ oral antiviral treatment molnupiravir showed it reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% in Covid-19 patients,” CNBC wrote.

That’s 50% of less than 2% remember — because only a tiny, teeny, teeny tiny percentage of COVID-19 patients actually die from COVID-19.

So what’s the deal with the need for the pill, if the vaccines and face masks supposedly solved the coronavirus crisis — as government health wonks have assured for more than a year?

Let the floodgates of the next phase of coronavirus Big Money be opened.

Let the floodgates of the next big phase of control for Democrats, socialists, communists and collectivists be opened.

The perfect storm of socialism has come to America’s shores and neither the power-hungry left nor the money-hungry pharmaceuticals are going to let this opportunity to seize control pass.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.