For the unvaccinated, Biden bets billions on COVID treatments

This week alone, the Biden administration inked a $5.25 billion deal with Pfizer for its experimental pill to treat Covid infections and agreed to pay $1 billion for a monoclonal antibody treatment from GlaxoSmithKline. That comes one top of multibillion-dollar deals earlier this month with Merck and Eli Lilly for their Covid medicines.

Spending billions of dollars on pills to treat Covid infections is far from where Biden anticipated he would be less than six months ago when he called on Americans to “declare our independence from the virus” during the “summer of freedom.”…

While the unvaccinated are significantly more likely to be hospitalized or die, the drugs will likely provide a benefit to those who are vaccinated as well. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday that a decline in vaccine effectiveness among the elderly and residents of long-term care facilities is driving up hospitalization and emergency room visits among vaccinated seniors.

“Although the highest risk are those people who are unvaccinated, we are seeing an increase in emergency department visits among adults 65 and older, which are now again higher than they are for younger age groups,” she told reporters.