The Biden administration is betting on widespread access to antiviral pills to blunt the worst outcomes of COVID-19 and prevent future waves of hospitalizations and deaths, but an analysis of federal data shows that many states have been slow to give out the doses they’ve received.
Across the country, states ordered some 5.4 million doses of the antiviral pills from Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co.-Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP by June 12. But they had dispensed roughly 1.7 million, or 31%, of those doses, according to a Morning Consult review of federal data. Those levels ranged from 16% in Georgia and Mississippi to 47% in Arkansas. (Maine’s rate is inflated due to a data error, a state health official said.)
Meanwhile, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that through late May, dispensing rates were lowest in the country’s most socially vulnerable ZIP codes, despite those communities having more sites available.
Taken together, the data shows how longstanding challenges around health care access are bearing out with at-home COVID-19 treatments. And it underscores that while supply of the antiviral pills may no longer be an issue, there are more hurdles ahead to ensure the medicine reaches patients equitably and in time.
“We’re still getting calls for people from 45 minutes away because the pharmacy there doesn’t have it,” said Anne Pace, who co-owns the independent Kavanaugh Pharmacy in Little Rock, Ark. “There’s so many small towns around, and in general, pharmacy access becomes difficult in any sort of small town.”
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