Shannon Romano, a molecular biologist, came down with Covid late last March, about a week after she and her colleagues shut down their lab at Mount Sinai Hospital. A debilitating headache came first, followed by a fever that kept rising, and then excruciating body aches. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t move,” she said. “Every one of my joints just hurt inside.”

It was not an experience she wanted to repeat — ever. So when she became eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine earlier this month, she got the shot.

TORONTO — As frustration mounts in Canada at the leaden weight of lockdowns and the glacial pace of vaccinations, a consortium of some of the country’s largest companies has launched a rapid testing program with the aim of protecting their 350,000 employees and publishing a playbook for businesses across Canada on how to reopen safely.

The program is believed to be the first of its kind among the Group of 7 industrialized nations, and has already attracted the attention of the Biden administration.

Nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, as thousands of patients are dying every day in the United States and widespread vaccination is still months away, doctors have precious few drugs to fight the virus.

A handful of therapies — remdesivir, monoclonal antibodies and the steroid dexamethasone — have improved the care of Covid patients, putting doctors in a better position than they were when the virus surged last spring. But these drugs are not cure-alls and they’re not for everyone, and efforts to repurpose other drugs, or discover new ones, have not had much success.