- This is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies
from the pharmaceutical company Regeneron.
In 2020, this treatment first made headlines
when President Donald Trump tested positive
for the coronavirus.
- They gave me Regeneron, and it was, like, unbelievable.
It just made me better, okay?
I call that a cure.
- Though Trump inaccurately called it a cure,
studies have shown that it is
a highly effective coronavirus treatment.
- Antibodies are proteins that our body makes any time
it gets any infection.
Can be the flu, it can be COVID, it can be strep throat.
They're a normal part of our immune system,
and this is how we're able to fight off different infections.
I mean, monoclonal antibody therapy for COVID
is, I think, one of the highlights
and successes we've had scientifically in the last year.
- Of course,
the other big scientific breakthrough of the pandemic
was the development of COVID-19 vaccines,
which remain the most effective way
to stop the spread of the virus.
But monoclonal antibody is also important.
- These monoclonal antibodies seem to be very effective.
The real purpose of these is to basically prevent
someone from needing to be hospitalized.
- If given early, within 10 days of symptoms,
they reduce the risk of hospitalization or death
by almost 80%.
They reduce the symptoms by four days.
They reduce the amount of virus in the nose so that, you know,
there's less of a chance of spreading it to a family member.
- As antibody treatments
become more available in the United States,
health experts do encourage their use.
- A much-underutilized intervention for COVID-19.
- But they also warn
that they are not a substitution for vaccines.
- The vaccine is what you take to prevent disease,
what you take so that you don't get sick.
Right now, the majority of the antibody treatments
is to treat once you've gotten sick.
So that's a difference, right,
to prevent illness versus treat illness.
- Even still, the demand for antibody treatments
has skyrocketed in certain areas.
- Who are sick with COVID
are lining up at sites like this one in Tampa,
hoping for a boost in fighting it off.
- In September 2021,
the Department of Health and Human Services
took over distribution of monoclonal antibodies.
- The federal government has resumed control
of these drugs' distribution
as their use skyrocketed with the summer surge.
- But there are still some roadblocks
in distributing the antibodies more widely.
They're a lot pricier than vaccines.
In fact, they're nearly 54 times
the value of 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
They're also more complicated to administer.
- It's frozen.
There has to be a pharmacist
who sort of has to pull it up and reconstitute it,
and then we have to watch that individual for one hour.
So you need nurses, you need an infusion center,
and you need a place where a COVID-positive patient
can be seen.
And I think, in all honesty, those three things --
you know, right now, we have a huge staffing
and nursing and healthcare shortage across the country.
Hospitals are full, they're busy,
and you have to see COVID-positive patients,
so it's not like being able to walk into your local Walgreens
or CVS or Rite Aid pharmacy and get the vaccine.
So just much more operationally heavy lift.
- These strains on the healthcare system
are a result of the highly contagious Delta variant
spreading among the unvaccinated,
who are far more likely to be hospitalized
if they're infected.
Some officials are urging healthcare
to give priority to unvaccinated people
when distributing monoclonal antibodies.
- I think it can be helpful treatment with the current surge
but only to treat people who are already positive.
It's not a fix-all,
and it can't prevent the surge from continuing
and certainly not the next surge,
which we know will happen.