Your Evening Briefing: Low-Cost Drug May Keep Covid Patients Out of Hospital

A generic and low-cost antidepressant may reduce the risk that Covid-19 will land an infected patient in the hospital, making it a potentially potent weapon against the virus. Merck is planning to make at least 20 million treatment courses of its closely watched antiviral drug next year, on top of 10 million it expects to make by the end of 2021. Citigroup will require all U.S. employees to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment. But despite the risk of infecting the very citizens they’re paid to serve, thousands of New York City police and fire workers are refusing to be vaccinated in the face of a looming mandate. Here’s the latest on the pandemic. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.