Searching for Pfizer Paxlovid capsules when mother acquired Covid

Simply after 1pm on Tuesday final week, my telephone buzzed with a textual content message from my mum: “Nicely I’ve had a chilly, aches, coughs and so on for the week.” She had taken a coronavirus check at residence. It was optimistic.

Having spent the previous yr writing about Covid-19 vaccines and coverings for The New York Instances, I knew so much concerning the choices out there to folks like my mom. However I used to be about to embark on a seven-hour odyssey that will present me that there was a lot I did not perceive.

My mom, Mary Ann Neilsen, is totally vaccinated, together with a booster shot, which tremendously decreased the chance that she would develop into significantly unwell with the virus. However she has a number of danger components that involved me. She’s 73. She’s overwhelmed breast most cancers twice.

Her age and most cancers historical past made her eligible to obtain the most recent remedies, which have been proven to thrust back the worst results of Covid. The issue, as I knew from my reporting, was that these remedies — together with monoclonal antibody IV fluids and antiviral capsules — are arduous to return by.

Demand for the medicine is rising because the Omicron variant of the coronavirus infects a report variety of People. However provides are scarce. The 2 mostly used manufacturers of antibodies do not appear to work towards Omicron, and the antiviral capsules are so new and developed so rapidly that not many hospitals and pharmacies have reached them.

I went searching for one in all two remedies: GlaxoSmithKline’s antibody infusion or Pfizer’s antiviral capsules often called Paxlovid. Each have been proven to be protected and extremely protecting towards extreme Covid when given to high-risk sufferers inside days of symptom onset. Each are robust towards Omicron.

One in all my first steps was to look on-line for lists of pharmacies and clinics close to my mom’s residence in Santa Barbara, California which may inventory one of many medicine. (I reside in Washington state, so like a lot else lately, my search was performed remotely.)

Some states, reminiscent of Tennessee and Florida, have helpful on-line instruments for finding a facility that shares monoclonal antibodies. However I could not discover one for California. I checked a federal database and located just one entry inside 25 miles of my mom.

After I known as this well being care system I used to be advised they had been exhausted.

I additionally hunted for Paxlovid. From my reporting, I knew of a federal database of pharmacy chains, hospital techniques, and different suppliers who ordered the capsules. A Instances colleague downloaded the info, as anybody can, and despatched it to me in a extra searchable format.

The record revealed only some choices, largely pharmacies close to my mom. I selected the closest one, a CVS, however a clerk knowledgeable me that the shop had rapidly run out of the primary cargo of capsules and did not know when extra can be coming.

After a couple of extra calls, I discovered a Ceremony Support stocked by Paxlovid over an hour’s drive from my mother’s house. The pharmacy warned me that the supply was quick.

Nonetheless, this was excellent news. I believed I had simply overcome the hardest impediment and solely two hours had handed since my mom examined optimistic. Now all I needed to do was get her a prescription.

I had already requested my mom to name her physician’s workplace and ask for a name to her physician so she may request a prescription for one of many remedies. She reported to me that the receptionist had advised her that they didn’t “do” the Glaxo or Pfizer remedies.

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Jan 19, 2022 4:42pm ET

That made no sense to me: the Meals and Drug Administration accredited the medicine. Why would not medical doctors prescribe them? Annoyed, I known as her physician’s workplace to get an evidence. (I didn’t establish myself as a Instances reporter on this or every other telephone name that day, partially as a result of I didn’t wish to seem like in search of preferential therapy.)

The workers member who answered the telephone advised me that the medical doctors there had but to do their very own medical analysis of Paxlovid and in precept couldn’t prescribe it simply but. Additionally, the clerk advised me my mom wanted an appointment to see the physician and was not out there till every week later.

I went in the hunt for one other physician who would write a prescription instantly.

I’ve tried arranging visits to a number of telemedicine suppliers, together with CVS and Teladoc, however I saved seeing a equally worded notification on the medicine varieties: They did not write prescriptions for Paxlovid or molnupiravir, the same antiviral capsule made by Merck.

(I later requested each firms about these insurance policies. A CVS spokeswoman stated the distributors prescribed the antiviral capsules to sufferers they noticed in individual at some shops, however not by telemedicine. A Teladoc spokesman stated the corporate was on the time believes that “it’s most applicable” for the personally prescribed antiviral capsules.)

I began calling emergency clinics and well being techniques close to my mom to see if they might write her a prescription. At one level, we even acquired her on a video name with a physician from a close-by well being care system.

Insanely, we had been advised the identical factor over and over: Your medical doctors could not write prescriptions for Paxlovid throughout digital appointments. My mom would should be examined in individual – which seemingly defeats the aim of a distant physician appointment.

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Anyway, that was a letdown as a result of my mom lives alone and would not drive, and the clinics weren’t inside strolling distance. She wouldn’t think about taking a taxi or bus and danger exposing others to the virus. On this regard, my mom will not be alone. Tens of millions of People depend on public transportation. And people with vehicles danger spreading the virus whereas gathering prescriptions in individual.

Different medical amenities I known as that afternoon gave me info that was merely flawed. One individual advised me that monoclonal antibody remedies should not out there in California. One other insisted Paxlovid was just for hospitalized sufferers.

Ultimately, my seek for a prescribing physician turned out to be pointless. Early that night, my mom obtained an sudden name from a physician at her GP. She advised the physician about her signs and concerning the Ceremony Support I discovered stocked with Paxlovid.

The physician advised her he was stunned we had been in a position to find Paxlovid. He submitted a prescription to Ceremony Support.

Now all we needed to do was choose up the capsules earlier than the pharmacy closed in about an hour.

Uber got here to the rescue. I requested a Ceremony Support pickup and listed my mom’s home because the vacation spot, about 60 miles away.

When a driver accepted the trip, I known as him and defined my uncommon request: He must get the prescription from the pharmacy counter after which drive it to my mom. I advised him I might tip him 100%.

The driving force who requested me to not embrace his title on this article was a sport. He delivered the dear cargo simply after 8 p.m. My mom swallowed the primary three capsules – the beginning of a five-day 30-pill routine – inside minutes of the motive force’s arrival.

“I take medicine and am very grateful to have it,” she wrote on the household group chat.

In a approach, my search was profitable. My mom began taking the capsules simply two and a half days after her signs began and inside eight hours of testing optimistic.

Inside a couple of days she felt higher. She completed the remedy final weekend.

However the truth that the method was so troublesome for a journalist whose job it’s to grasp how Paxlovid is delivered will not be encouraging. I fear that many sufferers or their households would surrender in the event that they stated no as typically as I did.

I used to be additionally reminded that even “free” therapy can include important prices.

The federal authorities has purchased sufficient Paxlovid for 20 million People to present out free of charge at a value of about $530 per individual. However I spent $256.54 to get my mother’s capsules. I paid $39 for the telemedicine go to to the supplier, who advised my mother to return in individual. The remaining was the Uber fare and the tip. Many sufferers and their kinfolk can’t afford this.

President Biden lately known as the Pfizer capsules a “sport changer.” My expertise exhibits that it will not be that simple.