White House expands access to COVID-19 antivirals

As US COVID-19 cases continue to steadily rise, the White House today announced a new effort to make Pfizer's COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid more accessible across the country.As part of the effort, the Biden Administration today opened the nation's first federally supported "Test-to-Treat" site, in Rhode Island.Expanding test-to-treat effortsNoting that Paxlovid has been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by about 90% in people with COVID-19, the White House said in a news release it has "moved quickly to ensure that these treatments are widely available and that health care providers and patients know about their availability and efficacy."The federal Test-to-Treat initiative helps make it easier for people to quickly access oral COVID-19 drugs like Paxlovid.

More than 2,500 Test-to-Treat locations are now operational across the country at local pharmacies and community health centers, up from 2,200 a month ago."We have dramatically increased the number of people benefiting from oral antivirals in the last seven weeks, from about 27,000 prescriptions filled each week to more than 182,000 last week—a more than six-fold increase," the White House said. "We have also doubled the number of sites where Paxlovid is available nationally."The federally supported Test-to-Treat clinic in Rhode Island is located in Providence.

Federal reimbursement will allow people who test positive for COVID-19 at the clinic to immediately receive a medical assessment and get oral antiviral treatments if they are prescribed.

The clinic also offers federally supported vaccination.The Biden Administration will also deploy clinical personnel to support staffing across several of Minnesota's state-run testing sites to transform