Leading the conversation on the airwaves last night: Pfizer’s covid pill is coming to Egypt. Egypt has agreed with Pfizer to purchase its Paxlovid oral anti-coronavirus med, interim health minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said in an interview on El Hekaya last night (watch, runtime: 2:45). Under the agreement, the US pharma giant will provide enough medication to treat 20k people, the minister said, adding that the pills will arrive in the “coming weeks.”

A handful of countries have approved the experimental antiviral med for use: A UK regulator last week approved it to treat mild to moderate covid symptoms in people aged 18 and above who are at risk of developing severe illness, following the US, which gave the go-ahead late last year for high-risk covid patients aged 12.

Egypt isn’t one of them: The Egyptian Meds. Authority is yet to approve Paxlovid for use in Egypt.

What is Paxlovid? It’s an experimental med created by Pfizer to treat mild-to-moderate covid-19. It consists of two separate pills — nirmatrelvir and ritonavir— that are taken twice daily for five days.

More than 21.6 mn Egyptians are now fully vaccinated against covid-19, while another 13.6 mn people have received their first dose, according to figures provided by Abdel Ghaffar (watch, runtime: 2:07).

The damage left by last week’s bad weather also got a lot of attention: Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 3:23), El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 6:45) and Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa (watch, runtime: 1:17:16) all had coverage.