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Getting better

Slavea Chankova: health-care correspondent, The Economist

A deeper understanding of covid-19’s impact should improve the outlook for
treatments

With luck, new drugs will be able to prevent infected people from becoming ill

2021 in brief

The United States is due to leave the World Health Organisation in July. President
Trump criticised the WHO for being slow to respond to the pandemic and for being too
China-centric

IN THE WORLD of drug discovery, it is not uncommon for a promising

molecule to take a decade to make the journey from the laboratory to the

pharmacy shelf. For covid-19, however, effective treatments are already in use

at hospitals around the world. There is a good chance that more treatments

will be added to the list in 2021—including some that will dramatically reduce

the number of covid-19 sufferers who need to be hospitalised.