More than 400,000 Americans are dead from covid-19 in the 11 months since the first confirmed U.S. fatality from the disease. Current models predict an additional 200,000 could be dead by late spring. Intensive care units nationwide are nearly 80 percent full. Vaccination is going far more slowly than necessary to keep up with the epidemic. There have been no substantial advances with new antivirals, and remdesivir, a drug approved for use in hospitalized patients, has had only a modest effect in curbing bad outcomes. We are in desperate need of safe, oral medications to treat early cases of covid-19...