The Biden administration is tightening its grip on the distribution of coronavirus monoclonal antibody treatments to states after a slew of predominately Republican-led states in the South have started requesting larger amounts of the treatment to battle rising coronavirus cases.
“Federal health officials plan to allocate specific amounts to each state under the new approach, in an effort to more evenly distribute the 150,000 doses that the government makes available each week,” Politico reported. “The approach is likely to cut into shipments to GOP-led states in the Southeast that have made the pricey antibody drug a central part of their pandemic strategy, while simultaneously spurning mask mandates and other restrictions.”
The news comes after Biden, who has launched political attacks against top Republican governors, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has struggled to contain the pandemic, which was one of the issues that he ran on in 2020.
“Still, until recently, the administration had shipped the antibody treatments to states on an as-needed basis — with top health officials in early August going as far as encouraging those battling the Delta surge to seek even more supply,” the report added. “But demand from a handful of southern states has exploded since then, state and federal officials said, raising concerns they were consuming a disproportionate amount of the national supply. Seven states — Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama — accounted for 70 percent of all orders in early September.”
The report said that the large uptick in the use of the treatments prompted their decision to take more control over-allocating the treatments to different states.