A U.S. Food and Drug Administration Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) now allows pharmacists to prescribe it.

The reason is because it needs to be administered within 5 days and in modern health care, you are lucky to get an appointment within 2 months - unless you have the same health insurance politicians give themselves. So FDA wants to make it possible for pharmacists to provide it and bypass the morass politicians created in health care.

If you have a pharmacist you use regularly they will already know any current medications and watch for interactions so this is a positive solution for the public. Doctors are going to be concerned but too many of them have been more worried about taking cultural stands, and were politically on board with having a layer of government on top of a layer of insurance companies, who were also mandated by government.