Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday the state will expand its use of monoclonal antibodies. In the video above, Straight Arrow Medical Expert Dr. Payal Kohli explains what monoclonal antibodies are and how they could help people beat or even prevent COVID-19.
The antibodies, made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals first made headlines earlier in the pandemic, notably being used on former President Donald Trump when he caught the virus.
“This is the most effective treatment that we’ve yet encountered for people who are actually infected with COVID-19 and the way it works, I mean, that there’s a core group of people that benefit from this are folks that are at the most high risk for severe illness from COVID-19,” Gov. DeSantis said. “So elderly people, people that have certain comorbidities, kidney problems.”
According to DeSantis, the antibodies had “the ability to reduce your likelihood of being hospitalized by 70% in clinical trials.”
The announcement comes as demand for the antibodies is exploding. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said nationwide orders are twelve times higher in recent weeks than they were at the beginning of July.
The federal government has shipped more than 15,000 patient courses to 162 sites in Florida over that same period of time. The state went from using between 400 and 600 a week around late June and early July to now reporting using 3,300 last week.
Across the state, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 continued to rise Thursday from 15,071 to 15,358 patients. More than 3,200 of those patients are in ICUs, taking up nearly half of the intensive care unit beds. Those hospitalized are largely unvaccinated and younger than those seen in hospitals during last summer’s surge, according to doctors.
Emergency departments in some areas are so overcrowded that doctors are sending patients home with small, portable pulse oximeters and oxygen so they can free up beds for sicker patients.
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