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2021-12-18 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Gov. DeSantis announces new PRE-COVID monoclonal antibodies treatment in Florida

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Posted by Besoeker 2021-12-18 07:42|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 More on 'Monoclonal Antibodies' found at this link.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-12-18 07:49|| 2021-12-18 07:49|| Front Page Top

#2
I could vote a 2024 President TRUMP/ VP Governor DeSantis ticket. Thus allowing Governor DeSantis 12 years in the WH doing something with a PRO-USA focus.

Posted by NN2N1 2021-12-18 08:49|| 2021-12-18 08:49|| Front Page Top

#3 Slightly (not entirely) OT: Now we're seeing even Manhattan liberals acknowledge vaccination failure.

The jig's up. Time to let this mild and extremely contagious variant do what should have been done from the beginning, and sweep through the population and give us natural immunity that's far more effective than these failing vaccines and 'boosters.'

From the NY Mag article:

"Suddenly this exceedingly transmissible variant (in combination with its forebear Delta) has arrived at our door with a pistol in its hand to inform us that the jig is finally up. And right now, the only reasonable response seems to be a sheepish, 'What took you so long?' "

Posted by Merrick Ferret 2021-12-18 09:11|| 2021-12-18 09:11|| Front Page Top

#4 One thing I like about Florida's approach: Each FL infusion center accepts patients who refer themselves after they get a positive COVID-19 test. Such FL patients don't need to waste time going through their PCP to then be referred to an infusion center. Most other states require eligible patients take this time-wasting step. The criteria for eligibility are pretty straight forward.

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-12-18 12:28|| 2021-12-18 12:28|| Front Page Top

#5 More from the article — this is exciting stuff:

Surrounded by medical professionals in Ocala, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo spoke at Ocala Regional Medical Center to discuss early treatment for COVID-19. The event included signs reading “Early Treatment Saves Lives,” a slogan used when the state launched its monoclonal antibody treatment sites in August as cases ramped up in Florida.

“Most recently, Dec. 8, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for a new product called Evusheld, and it’s AstraZeneca’s new monoclonal antibody product for pre-exposure prevention of COVID-19 for eligible populations 12 and older,” DeSantis said.

While the new product is different than the other monoclonal antibody treatments available, DeSantis said the treatment was a long-lasting, long-acting monoclonal therapy. He said clinical trials showed it reduced the risk of COVID infections “in the first instance” by 77%. Still, DeSantis said clinical trials were sometimes different than real-world use.

“If you look at Pfizer and their initial results saying 95% protection against infection, I don’t think anyone can look at what’s happened over the last six to eight months and say that it’s 95%,” DeSantis said. “So the immunity clearly wanes.” DeSantis said this was why boosters for COVID-19 vaccines were being pushed more.

The governor said the new treatment from AstraZeneca was for people who had not yet been exposed to COVID, and that were not infected.

“It’s something that you’re trying to provide some antibody protection for about a six month period of time, for the people that are specifically authorized to do the Evusheld are individuals who are immunocompromised and may not have adequate immune response to vaccination,” DeSantis said.

He said the Evusheld treatment was potentially better for people who may not be able to vaccinated or had other health concerns, where the vaccine was not recommended and where other treatments were needed instead. Still, the treatment is not for post-exposure COVID treatment according to DeSantis.

“Initially, we have a very limited allocation, it’s about 3,100 doses,” DeSantis said. “This initial allocation is going to go to hospitals and clinics that are already administering monoclonal antibody treatment to patients, including right here in Ocala. And the way we tried to allocate it was to say ‘can we get it within a two-hour drive of everyone in Florida.’”

So it’s for those at highest risk who do not respond to normal vaccination. I have one of those in my household, so I’ll pass the word, though we don’t live in Florida. Good find, Besoeker.

Posted by trailing wife 2021-12-18 18:57|| 2021-12-18 18:57|| Front Page Top

#6 "You killed Frankenstein. Who are we supposed to be a scared of now?"

Posted by M. Murcek 2021-12-18 19:19|| 2021-12-18 19:19|| Front Page Top

#7 Actually the FDA changed their EUA criteria to allow treatment for pre-exposure in the cases mentioned in the source article. ANY infusion center in the USA is now authorized to do this, not just the ones in Florida. Still I give DeSantis a lot of credit for staging this event in Florida. Due to the unaccustomed delivery method for this outpatient therapy, the general public and most physicians can't quite get their heads around this.
Meanwhile back in Ohio a recent missive from the state medical board actually deigned to mention outpatient monoclonal antibody therapy for the first time since it was authorized 13 months ago. Way back then I sent them an email asking for their announcement of this, and I never received an answer. Ditto for messages I sent to that state health department. Meanwhile back in Boston, the "World's Greatest Hospital" aka MGH is struggling to deliver 60 infusions a day and complaining of how difficult it was to set up this minimal effort.

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-12-18 20:18|| 2021-12-18 20:18|| Front Page Top

#8 trailing wife -- this is as far as Ohio has gone in providing a list of infusion centers in the state. It just points to a federal list of phone numbers to call. One national finding aid is here. You must call each of the numbers in the finding aids to learn where the actual infusion centers are located, and then you must call the actual infusion center to get the info necessary for a physician to make a referral. NB: Florida has eliminated the necessity for any FL patient to go through a physician, and each infusion center is theoretically able to give infusions based on the current FDA criteria for all kinds of high risk patients.
Last week I again tracked down the 2 infusion centers nearest my home, both within 5 miles, and have their phone numbers on my smartphone's contact list, along with the PDF of all paperwork the main one needs. I do this because I am a high risk patient and would be eligible if I ever got a + COVID test, regardless of my vaccination status. The local media AFAICT have not publicized the existence of these centers in any way.
I HIGHLY advise anyone connected to a high risk patient to do the research on locating infusion centers ahead of time. Time is of the essence in getting such an infusion and the current setup tends to waste a good deal of time before an eligible patient actually gets treatment. Florida has at least eliminated one time wasting step, unlike Ohio.

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-12-18 20:33|| 2021-12-18 20:33|| Front Page Top

#9 Thank you so much for this information, Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 — I’ll save the link to this thread for reference.

Final daughter’s doctors are with the University of Cincinnati medical group, so I’ll follow up with her GP and immunologist about this, though I see that Evusheld is not yet listed among the offerings in Ohio. Final daughter had a general course of IVIG (Intravenous immunoglobulin) treatments earlier this year, so her file is in their system, which should help.

Posted by trailing wife 2021-12-18 21:09|| 2021-12-18 21:09|| Front Page Top

#10

The news articles including the FDA datasheets have obscured the fact the Evusheld is only to be given as intramuscular injections and not for IV use. So infusion centers may not be necessary at all!
---- I have found that the infusion centers giving IVIG are kept separate from those giving the anti-COVID monoclonal antibody treatments, since those up until now were only given to COVID-19 + patients. Evusheld by definition is for patients without an active case of COVID-19, so the IVIG infusion centers won't be adversely affected by giving these antibody treatments and would be logical places well equipped to give Evusheld IM.

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-12-18 21:47|| 2021-12-18 21:47|| Front Page Top

#11 FDA fact sheet on Evusheld for healthcare providers

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-12-18 21:53|| 2021-12-18 21:53|| Front Page Top

#12 Thank you very much for all this info, Bubba.
Best wishes to you and yours -- and to you & yours as well, tw.

Posted by Merrick Ferret 2021-12-18 22:58|| 2021-12-18 22:58|| Front Page Top