COVID-19 pill available in Central Florida -- if you can find it

ORLANDO, Fla. - It has been two years since the first COVID-19 case was detected in the U.S. Since then there have been millions of cases and nearly 860,000 deaths caused by COVID.

Pills to treat the virus are now available in Florida, but they might be hard to find right now. Doctors say that more pills should be arriving in pharmacies in two to three weeks. 

The pills by Pfizer and Merck are trickling in but are flying off the shelves. The pills promise to keep COVID patients out of the hospital. 

Depending on the study, scientists report an 80 to 90-percent reduction in the chances you will be hospitalized when you start the medication. 

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Doctors say the antiviral pills work against COVID-19 much like Tamiflu does for the flu. It is by prescription only so your doctor will likely need to test you to confirm a positive test and that the patient should start the pills within five days of a positive test. 

"It only works early on in the whole system so if you wait until you're so sick that you end up in a hospital it's not going to help you at all," advises Dr. Thomas Unnasch.

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If you look at Florida’s COVID treatment locator it shows just how limited supply is right now. 

A CVS and a Publix in Orlando have the pills now and so does a Publix and Walgreens near Daytona Beach. Doctors say some pharmacies will get a few hundred doses and then disappear within an hour due to the large demand.

Some researchers say in just a month, this pill could be a pandemic ender.

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