The Biden-Harris Administration is focused on providing tools and strategies that will help enable America to move forward safely beyond the current pandemic while sustaining and building upon the progress we’ve made over the past 13 months. The National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan was released by the White House last week, and it lays out the roadmap for helping the country fight COVID-19 now and in the future as we begin to get back to our more normal routines.
During last week’s State of the Union address, President Biden announced a new Test to Treat initiative aimed at getting these free lifesaving pills to people more efficiently and quickly. This initiative, managed by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), provides an additional pathway for getting COVID-19 treatments directly to pharmacy-based clinics, making more treatments available to more people in more locations.
Participating pharmacy-based clinics will provide access for people to get tested for COVID-19, receive a prescription from an on-site or affiliated health care provider, and then have their prescription filled - all at one convenient location. The Test to Treat program builds upon the existing distribution of COVID-19 therapeutics ASPR already makes available at no cost to thousands of locations across all states and territories and 200 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded community health centers nationwide.
Locations participating in the Test to Treat initiative will receive the oral antiviral drugs, including Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s Molnupiravir, through a direct federal ordering process. This allocation will have no impact on the supply that states and jurisdictions are already receiving, which means that individuals can still continue to get a prescription through their regular healthcare provider and pick up the prescription at any location where antivirals are being distributed. Through this initiative, we are adding more sites that have testing ability co-located with health care providers who can prescribe the medication and pharmacists who can fill prescriptions, and this means faster treatment for eligible individuals at highest risk for COVID-19. And with such a short treatment window of opportunity (within five days of symptom onset) for the oral antivirals, every day counts.
Learn more about the Test to Treat initiative and read the full National COVID-19 Preparedness Strategy.
