HARTFORD, Conn. — As more patients have developed COVID-19 symptoms over recent months, at least one Connecticut health provider has been forced to limit who receives potentially lifesaving treatment.
An official with Yale New Haven Health confirmed this week that the health system is now prioritizing unvaccinated patients for monoclonal antibody treatment, under the reasoning that those patients are most vulnerable to developing severe COVID-19 symptoms.
Monoclonal antibodies are typically given to patients with mild or moderate cases of COVID-19 who doctors fear may progress to severe disease and/or hospitalization.
“Starting the week after Thanksgiving, the demand for the monoclonal (antibodies) started to far exceed our capacity to deliver it, so we needed to move to a more restrictive criteria,” said LeeAnn Miller, Yale New Haven’s chief pharmacy officer. “If you are fully vaccinated, you’re not going to be prioritized as high as those who are not fully vaccinated.”
Before Connecticut’s recent COVID-19 surge, the criteria for vaccinated and unvaccinated people receiving monoclonal antibodies were identical, Miller said.
Connecticut’s coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have surged in the past six weeks, reaching levels not previously recorded since last winter. As of Friday, the state reported 585 people hospitalized with COVID-19, up from fewer than 200 at the end of October.
This has strained hospitals, which are already treating a full load of non-coronavirus patients.
Miller said Yale New Haven has plenty of monoclonal antibodies but lacks the space and staff to administer them within the appropriate time frame.
An emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration requires that patients be treated with monoclonal antibodies within 10 days of the onset of their symptoms.
“More people are getting referred to us because they’re positive with COVID, and because we’re already extremely busy in the hospitals treating people who don’t have COVID, it really is an issue of space and staff limitations,” she said. “We have a large number of patients that want it in a very short amount of time, and there just isn’t the space and staff to treat them.”
“The criteria for the monoclonals, at this point it is not changing,” said Eric Arlia, Hartford HealthCare’s pharmacy director. “There are no supply constraints at this time, so we would like to continue to just follow the (FDA’s emergency use authorization) and just figure out ways we can treat more people as the demand has increased pretty significantly over the past two months.”
Under Yale New Haven’s new criteria, vaccinated people 65 and older who have not received a booster shot may still receive monoclonal antibodies, along with other vaccinated people who have severely weakened immune systems.
Unvaccinated people, on the other hand, may receive monoclonal antibodies as long as they are 65 or older or have any of a long list of underlying conditions, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and more.
Although Connecticut’s hospitals are not currently at or near their capacity, Miller said the need to restrict monoclonal antibody treatment demonstrates the consequences of letting COVID-19 spread widely.
“We absolutely are doing everything we can to treat as many patients as we can, but it’s the situation we’re in,” she said.
———
