Health Care — Biden push to expand Paxlovid faces obstacles
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Today in health care, the White House is pushing to make the highly-effective Pfizer treatment Paxlovid more available, but obstacles remain.
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White House’s Paxlovid push hits hurdles
The Biden administration has gone all in on the COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid, announcing new measures to make the oral treatment more widely available and making it clear that Vice President Harris used it as she recovered from the coronavirus.
The White House has said it will nearly double the amount of Paxlovid available around the country and that it is working to set up more Test-to-Treat locations in pharmacies and other locations.
But the administration faces a number of obstacles in really making Paxlovid, and a similar treatment from Merck and Ridgeback known as molnupiravir easily accessible to Americans.
Health care experts who spoke with The Hill said the expansion plan failed to account for the difficulty that many patients face in actually acquiring a prescriptions for the oral drugs.
Health care providers who are authorized to prescribe Paxlovid — physicians and advanced practice nurses — are not always staffed at pharmacies.
Tom Kraus, vice president of government relations at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), said this situation will be “operationally quite challenging” to the administration’s goal of expanding Test to Treat locations.
NYC raises COVID-19 alert level to ‘medium’
New York City on Monday raised its COVID-19 alert level from “low” to “medium,” amid a rise in cases in the city.
The move did not trigger any major new restrictions, but it is a sign of the continued risk from the virus and an uptick in cases that has also been seen on a national level.
If the alert level rises again, to “high,” then the city will consider bringing back its mask mandate for indoor settings, according to New York’s color-coded system.
“If you are at a higher risk for severe disease due to age, underlying health conditions or because you are unvaccinated, consider additional precautions such as avoiding crowded indoor gatherings,” New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan tweeted Monday in announcing the move.
“We continue to strongly recommend all New Yorkers wear a mask in public indoor settings,” he added.
Cases have ticked up in New York City to around 2,300 per day, according to a New York Times tracker, though there is no sign of a steep spike like there was over the winter.
Hospitalizations in the city have also ticked up but are still at relatively low levels.
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