Molnupiravir pills are ready to go. The government has prepurchased 1.7 million treatment courses. The medication doesn’t require refrigeration and is easy to ship. These pills are sitting on a shelf as Americans are dying in hospitals.

Molnupiravir was so effective in its randomized controlled trial that researchers stopped accepting new participants. The drug’s observed survival benefit was dramatic: No Covid patient who received molnupiravir died, compared with eight deaths in the placebo group. When a drug shows such profound benefits, it’s considered unethical to continue to give sick subjects a placebo. Yet practicing physicians can’t give molnupiravir to any sick patient because of a regulatory barrier.

Compassionate use doesn’t preclude further study. The drug could be administered broadly on a protocol, and outcomes could be tracked closely, as was done with convalescent plasma. Those results can help inform the FDA’s review, pending full approval.