We talked to doctors about the COVID treatment options, who is getting them and when supply will improve:
COVID case counts in Massachusetts are trending down, but they are still higher than at any point pre-omicron. That means, there are still a lot of people getting sick with COVID.
The other two medications are antiviral drugs given orally. Both of these drugs were authorized just over a month ago and are the first at-home treatments available. This means doctors have to prioritize the people they believe are most likely to end up in the hospital with severe COVID.that help doctors determine who should be eligible. They’re based on four factors: age, vaccination status, immune status and other clinical risk factors.
Now, things are improving. That's because Pfizer’s antiviral oral medication started getting to patients, and the number of very vulnerable patients has begun declining as overall case counts in the state fall.Sandeep Jubbal, an infectious disease physician and the medical director of the COVID Treatment Center at UMass Memorial Health, said as of last week his center was able to provide treatment to all Tier 1 patients and people in the next priority group, Tier 2.
Some states are relying on commercial pharmacies to distribute treatments, but Massachusetts has focused on medical centers and mobile sites. Many of these treatment sites are now accepting at-home rapid test results and not waiting for PCR tests, since it can sometimes take a while for PCR test results to come back.