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You know, a matter of days. i know that just kind of worried me. >> reporter: despite being boosted, clay's bmi of 35 placed him at higher risk, so clay's doctor prescribed him paxlovid, an antiviral that has been shown to reduce hospitalizations by nearly 90% among those at highest risk for developing severe disease. >> they are a game changer. and have the potential to -- to dramatically alter the impact of covid-19. >> reporter: paxlovid is a combination of oral pills that work by interfering with the virus's ability to replicate. based on paxlovid's high efficacy, the 20 million courses bo...

An antiviral that has been shown to reduce hospitalizations by nearly 90% among those at highest risk for developing severe disease. >> they're a game changer and have the potential to dramatically alter the hymn pact of covid-19. >> reporter: paxlovid is a compli biination of oral pills that work by interfering with the virus' ability to replicate. based on the high efficacy, the 20 million courses bought by the biden administration could eventually prevent more than a million hospitalizations. based on cnn's calculations. but the problem is this, the majority of those doses won't arrive for ...

Necessary if we see very low levels of circulating virus, which is the hope in the weeks and months ahead. >> i mean looking at the situation with the fourth dose, the law of diminishing returns coming into play? >> well, you know, it's four months after the third dose, there is some evidence -- at least from israel -- of people having the same type of thing that happened with the initial booster. so, at least for people at high risk is something to think about. that's what we saw with the -- the uk announcement today. we are going to have to grapple with that in the u.s. and other countries b...

Days. with more re-openings planned throughout the course of the year. nina dos santos, cnn, london. to san diego now. dr. eric topal, cardiologist. welcome back to "cnn newsroom." >> great to be with you, zwron. >> so, around the world, we are seeing restrictions coming to an end or easing up to varying degrees. it is all part of living with covid stage that we are now in. the british prime minister outlined the big picture of how this would work during question time monday. here he is. >> it is time that we've got our confidence back. we don't need laws to compel people to be considerate t...

Transmissible variant. and that is now slowly starting to rise in the united states. and i expect that we will see a pretty definitive evidence of an increase in cases in the united states probably by the end of this month. >> reporter: other health experts caution the u.s. may not be as prepared for a potential ba.2 variant surge. in the uk, 86% of eligible people are fully vaccinated, with 67% boosted. those figures, significantly lower in the u.s. white house officials also detailed this week that covid-19 relief funding from the american rescue plan is running out. officials say more funds...