New York City will provide free antiviral pills, home-delivered, to people who test positive and are at higher risk from COVID-19, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Sunday.
“We want to make sure that no one with COVID has to move throughout the city,” Adams said at a press briefing in the Bronx. “We want you to take advantage of this.”
Both oral anti-viral medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — paxlovid from Pfizer Inc. and molnupiravir from Merck & Co. — will be available in limited quantities, according a City Hall press release. They will be delivered in partnership with Alto Pharmacy.
Adams said that the Omicron surge that again made New York City the U.S. epicenter for COVID-19 had receded considerably.
Average daily reported infections over last week are just above 5,000, according to city data, compared with a 28-day average of more than 20,500. Daily hospitalizations have fallen to an average of 267 compared with a 28-day average of 659.
As the surge has fallen around New York, the city now has one of the state’s lowest rates of infection.
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