US President Joe Biden has announced a doubling of US government purchases of new Pfizer therapeutic pills designed to combat the worst effects of Covid-19.
At a meeting with his White House pandemic response team, Mr Biden said the new order will take the stockpile to 20 million from 10 million pills.
"These pills are going to dramatically decrease hospitalisations and deaths," he said. "We already placed the largest order in the world. Now I'm doubling that order."
The FDA regulatory body granted emergency use authorisation on 22 December for Pfizer's Paxlovid tablets.
The initial government purchase of 10 million antiviral treatments, which are aimed at those facing a high-risk from Covid-19, cost $5.3bn.
The United States, like other countries around the world, is seeing a huge surge in infections from the Covid Omicron variant. So far, also in keeping with data internationally, the strain seems mostly only to cause serious illness in those who have not been vaccinated.
"This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated," Mr Biden said.
"Be concerned about Omicron but don't be alarmed," he said. However he added, "if you're unvaccinated... some will die, needlessly die".
The United States recorded more than one million Covid-19 cases yesterday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as the Omicron variant spread at a rapid pace.
There were 1,080,211 new cases in the country, a global record, with the number of cases doubling on the previous week.
It comes a day after top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said the country was experiencing "almost a vertical increase" in Covid-19 cases, adding the peak may be only weeks away.
The heavily mutated Omicron strain - the most transmissible to date - accounted for around 59% of national US cases in the week ending 25 December, according to government modeling.
Dr Fauci said the experience of South Africa - where the strain was first detected in late November and peaked quickly, then subsided nearly as speedily - offered some hope.
Rates of death and hospitalisation in the US have been far lower in recent weeks than during previous Covid surges.
With 9,382 deaths over the past seven days, the nation's death toll has fallen by 10%, week on week.
In the last seven days, the country has recorded 3.4 million cases at an average of 486,000 per day with a peak on 3 January, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The US record during previous waves was 258,000 cases per day, for the week of 5 to 11 January 2021.
Officials have struggled to find a balance that will protect public health without gravely damaging the economy or slamming key services like policing and air travel.
Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention halved the isolation period for asymptomatic Covid cases to five days, in a bid to blunt mass Omicron-induced disruption as infections hit new highs in multiple US states.
And yesterday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer's Covid-19 booster shot for children as young as 12 ahead of the reopening of schools following the holiday break.
Covid-19 has killed at least 5,441,446 people globally since the outbreak emerged in December 2019, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on Monday.
Taking into account excess mortality linked to Covid-19, the World Health Organization estimates the overall death toll could be two to three times higher.
