The Spanish pharmaceutical company PharmaMar is testing a powerful antiviral called plitidepsin that could be a major tool in combating the symptoms of Covid-19. This chemical compound has been extracted from a sea squirt (marine invertebrate) called Aplidium albicans that comes from the seas near Ibiza – particularly in the waters of es Vedrà and Tagomago. By lowering the viral load it greatly reduces the symptoms of Covid-19, thus making recovery faster and easier. Researchers from the University of California (US) found that plitidepsin is 30 times more potent than remdesivir – the most commonly used antiviral drug. It is also proving to be effective against variants of the virus that have arisen. The success of plitidepsin against Covid-19 would not mean that the Aplidium sea squirts would be massively harvested from our waters. Pharmamar has isolated the key molecule, and is able to manufacture it synthetically... so our heroic sea squirts will not be molested.