Health officials are reminding the public that therapeutics are available to Hawaii residents as BA.5, a more transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19, gains a foothold in the state.
The Hawaii Department of Health has issued a fact sheet on treatments, and urges people to act quickly following an infection in an effort to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death.
“There are medications to treat COVID. They can be really effective but you’ve got to act quickly,” said DOH spokesperson Brooks Baehr in a new public service announcementt. “If you test positive, find out if therapeutics are right for you. Don’t hesitate. Therapeutics should be administered within five days of your first symptoms.”
Among the options are federally approved antiviral pills, such as Paxlovid and Lagevrio, which prevent the virus from replicating. They require a prescription and a positive COVID-19 test.
The pills are for people who contracted COVID-19 and are at higher risk of progressing to severe illness. Those who qualify include people age 65 and older as well as anyone age 12 or older with an underlying condition such as obesity, diabetes and asthma.
President Joe Biden, 79, was prescribed Paxlovid after he tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
Doctors in Hawaii have been prescribing the antiviral pills since at least April, and DOH said there is plenty of supply in the state. To ease access, the federal government has launched “test-to-treat” sites across the country where people can get tested, followed by a prescription on the spot.
Another available option is a monoclonal antibody therapy, such as bebtelo- vimab, which blocks viruses from attaching to and entering human cells. It’s administered intravenously, and should be given within seven days of symptom onset.
Additionally, Evusheld, a preventive medicine, is available by prescription to those who are moderately to severely immunocompromised due to a medical condition or because they may have an inadequate immune response or severe reaction to COVID-19 vaccination.
More than 4,000 courses of these therapeutics were administered here in June, according to DOH, and nearly 6,000 courses have been administered so far this month.
DOH on Wednesday reported a weekly average of 573 new cases a day — about the same as the average reported the previous week.
The state’s average positivity rate, meanwhile, ticked up to 15.7% compared with 15.1% reported the previous week.
The average positivity rates increased for two counties — Kauai County’s rate was 19.9% compared with 18.5% reported the previous week, while Maui County’s jumped to 17.8%, from 14.7%.
Hospitalizations remained relatively stable, with 163 COVID-19 patients in Hawaii hospitals Wednesday, including 11 in intensive care and seven on ventilators.
According to the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, the seven-day average of COVID-19 patients hospitalized was about 161 per day — slightly higher than the previous week.
Hawaii hospitals and long-term facilities, meanwhile, are experiencing a critical shortage of staff, with up to 1,000 frontline health care workers out on any given day due to COVID-19. This is further stymied by licensing delays from the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, which itself has been challenged by a shortage of staff.
HAH has requested the state to issue an emergency proclamation waiving state licensing requirements for out-of-state health care workers for at least 90 days to help alleviate the shortage.
DOH on Wednesday also reported 23 more deaths, bringing the state’s coronavirus-related death toll to 1,571.
Among the deaths were an Oahu man in his 30s and an Oahu woman in her 40s, according to the DOH mortality dashboard. Both had been hospitalized. The majority of deaths were elderly Oahu residents, ages 70 and older with underlying conditions. A dozen of the patients who died had not been hospitalized.
The deaths are not reported in real time, meaning that some of them occurred in weeks or months prior.
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise again in most U.S. states as BA.5, described as the most-transmissible variant yet, takes over.
BA.4 and BA.5 together make up 95% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. BA.5 alone makes up about 82% of the proportion of variants, with BA.4 accounting for about 13%.
BA.5 has the highest fitness, growth advantage and immune evasion of any subvariant, according to Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.
Since May, both BA.4 and BA.5 have been detected via genome sequencing in Hawaii, and are present in all four major counties.
BA.5 makes up 39% and BA.4 8% of variants circulating in Hawaii, according to the state’s latest variant report, but are likely higher now since the data was based on sequencing for the two-week period ending July 2.
Despite the infection threat posed by these subvariants, many Americans are no longer masking indoors. According to the most recent Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index, about 36% of Americans polled in July said they sometimes or always wear a mask outside their homes — the lowest tally since the start of the pandemic. Another 36% said they never wear a mask outside of the house.
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5 Things to Know About Paxlovid
>> Pfizer’s Paxlovid is for people with mild to moderate COVID-19 cases at high risk for progression to severe illness. Must be at least 12 years old, weigh at least 88 pounds and have a positive test.
>> Paxlovid needs to be taken within five days of developing symptoms. It requires a prescription.
>> It is an antiviral pill that packages two medications together. Three pills are taken together twice daily for five days.
>> There is a long list of medications Paxlovid can interact with, including cholesterol-lowering Lipitor. Tell your health care provider what you are taking.
>> Some people experience “Paxlovid rebound,” meaning their symptoms return after a five-day course and initial recovery, resulting in a positive COVID-19 test again. CDC says there is no evidence additional treatment is needed.
Source: Yale Medicine
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More on COVID-19 Therapeutics
>> hawaiicovid19.com/covid-19-treatment
>> aspr.hhs.gov/COVID-19/Therapeutics
