Ideally there would be a treatment for the "I can't breathe" stage. Unfortunately anti-viral drugs' effect depends on inhibiting future exponential replication.

Ideally there would be a treatment for the "I can't breathe" stage. Unfortunately anti-viral drugs' effect depends on inhibiting future exponential replication. Kind of like how fire extinguishers are good if one sees and smothers the first flame but are moot if flames are already shooting out the windows. Paxlovid might not even be easy to use. Five days might have already passed from infection to first symptoms to urgent care visit to PCR test result. And that's assuming the drug is in stock.