This would be a great breakthrough.
A new drug being developed to treat Covid-19 may cut the chance of death or hospitalisation by up to half.
The pharmaceutical giant Merck is the company behind the pill which is called Molnupiravir.
And they've been doing clinical trials of its new oral antiviral medication for the treatment of Covid-19.
The trials show that it can reduce the chance of hospitalisation or death by about 50% for patients at risk of severe disease.
And those tests showed only 7% of patients who received the medication were hospitalised.
Which is compared with 14% of people treated with a placebo drug.
If authorised, the drug would be the first oral antiviral medication for Covid-19.
The news comes as the Department of Health confirmed 1,059 new cases of the virus here yesterday evening.
308 patients are in hospital today - that's up 11 from the previous day.
While there are 59 people being treated in ICU.
