Happy Nice Mall

Just after 1 pm on Tuesday last week, my phone vibrated with a text message from my mom: “Well, the weekday came with a cold, aches, cough, etc.” He had been tested for coronavirus at home. It was positive.

After spending the last year writing for The New York Times about Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, I knew a lot about the options available to people like my mother. Still, I was about to embark on a seven-hour journey that would show me that there was much I did not understand.

My mother, Mary Ann Neilsen, is fully vaccinated, including a booster vaccine, which sharply reduces her chances of getting seriously ill from the virus. But he has several risk factors this worried me. 73 years old. She beat breast cancer twice.

His age and cancer history have made him eligible to receive the latest treatments that have been shown to fend off the worst consequences of Covid. The problem is as far as I know my reportingThese treatments, including monoclonal antibody infusions and antiviral pills, were difficult to obtain.

Demand for the drugs is on the rise as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has infected a record number of Americans. But the material is scarce. The two most widely used antibody brands don’t seem to work against Omicron, and antiviral pills are so new and developed so quickly that most of them haven’t made it to hospitals and pharmacies.

I started tracking down one of two treatments: GlaxoSmithKline’s antibody infusion or Pfizer’s antiviral pills known as Paxlovid. Both were found to be safe and highly protective against severe Covid when given to high-risk patients within a few days of symptom onset. Both are strong against Omicron.

One of my first steps was to search the Internet for listings of pharmacies and clinics near my mother’s house in Santa Barbara, California, where one of the drugs might be in stock. (I live in Washington State, so my search was conducted remotely, as is the case these days.)

some states like Tennessee and Florida, have helpful online tools for finding a facility with monoclonal antibodies in stock. But I couldn’t find one for California. I checked federal database, my mom had a single record within 25 miles.

When I called that healthcare system I was told it was over.

So I hunted Paxlovid. From my reports, I knew something. federal database Number of pharmacy chains, hospital systems and other providers ordering pills. A Times colleague downloaded the data, as anyone can do, and sent it to me in a more easily searchable format.

The list revealed only a few possibilities near my mother, mostly pharmacies. The closest, I called a CVS, but an employee said the store’s first shipment was selling out quickly and he didn’t know when more would arrive.

After several searches, I found a Rite Aid with Paxlovid in stock, over an hour’s drive from my mom’s apartment. The pharmacy warned me that the supply is going fast.

Still, this was good news. I thought I had just overcome the toughest hurdle, and it’s only been two hours since my mom tested positive. Now I needed to get him a prescription.

I had asked my mother to call her doctor’s office and make a phone call to her doctor so she could get a prescription for one of the treatments. He informed me that the receptionist told him they “do not do” Glaxo or Pfizer treatments.

That didn’t make sense to me: The Food and Drug Administration allowed the drugs. Why don’t doctors write prescriptions? Frustrated, I called his doctor’s office to get an explanation. (I didn’t identify myself as a Times reporter in the phone call or otherwise in the phone call that day, partly because I didn’t want to give the impression of preferential treatment.)

The employee who answered the phone told me that the doctors there had not yet done their own medical review of Paxlovid and that, as a policy, they could not write prescriptions yet. Moreover, the employee told me that my mother would need an appointment to speak with a doctor and there would be no vacancies until a week later.

I immediately started looking for another doctor to prescribe.

I tried scheduling visits with various telemedicine providers, including CVS and Teladoc, but kept seeing a similarly worded statement on their intake forms: They were not prescribing for Paxlovid or molnupiravir, a similar antiviral pill from Merck.

(Later, I asked both companies about these policies. A CVS spokesperson said that providers prescribe antiviral pills to patients they see in person at some stores, but not via telemedicine. A Teladoc spokesperson said the company “believes it’s the most appropriate” antiviral pills in person at this point. to be prescribed.)

I started calling emergency care clinics and health systems near my mother to see if they would prescribe a prescription for my mother. At one point, we even got him on a video call with a doctor from a nearby healthcare system.

Infuriatingly, we’ve been told the same thing over and over: Their doctors were unable to prescribe Paxlovid during virtual appointments. My mother would have to be evaluated in person – apparently defeating the purpose of a distant doctor’s appointment.

In any case, this was not the beginning, because my mother lives alone and does not drive, and the clinics were not within walking distance. He wouldn’t consider taking a taxi or bus and risk exposing others to the virus. My mother is not alone in this. Tens of millions of Americans rely on public transportation. And those with cars run the risk of spreading the virus while seeking prescriptions in person.

Other medical facilities I called that afternoon gave me completely false information. One person told me that there is no monoclonal antibody treatment available in California. Another insisted that Paxlovid was for hospitalized patients only.

In the end, my effort to find a prescriber turned out to be unnecessary. Early in the evening, my mother received an unexpected phone call from her primary care provider’s doctor. She told the doctor about her symptoms and the Rite Aid I found with Paxlovid in stock.

The doctor told him he was surprised we were able to find Paxlovid. She phoned Rite Aid with a prescription.

We needed to get the pills before the pharmacy closed in an hour.

Uber came to the rescue. I requested a pickup from Rite Aid and listed the destination as my mom’s house, about 60 miles away.

When a driver agreed to ride, I called him and explained my unusual request: He would have to get the prescription from the pharmacy’s window and then drive it into my mother’s. I told him I would tip him 100 percent.

The driver, who asked me not to use his name in this article, turned out to be a game. He delivered the precious cargo just after 8pm. My mother swallowed the first three pills—the start of a five-day, 30-pill regimen—within minutes after the driver arrived.

“I’m taking the meds and I’m so thankful I have them,” she texted in the family group chat.

With some precautions, my search was successful. My mom started taking the pills just two and a half days after her symptoms started and within eight hours of testing positive.

Within a few days she started to feel better. He finished the regime last weekend.

However, for a journalist whose job it is to understand how Paxlovid was delivered, it’s not very heartwarming that the process is this difficult. I worry that many patients or their families will give up after being told “no” over and over, like myself.

I was also reminded that even a “free” treatment can come with significant costs.

The federal government purchased enough Paxlovid to feed 20 million Americans for approximately $530 per person to be distributed free of charge. But I spent $256.54 to buy pills for my mom. I paid $39 for a telemedicine visit with the provider who told my mom she needed a face-to-face visit. The rest was Uber fare and tip. Many patients and their families cannot afford it.

President Biden recently wanted Pfizer pills are a “game changer”. My experience shows that it won’t be that simple.