Driven by President Biden's comprehensive COVID-19 response, there are now more tools than ever before to protect people from the virus, including.
The Administration will continue to engage the clinical community to broaden awareness and understanding of these treatments and to make sure that health care providers are counseling their patients about these effective treatments, prescribing them when appropriate, and helping patients identify where their prescription can be filled. The Administration’s efforts will focus on making sure that people know that COVID-19 oral antiviral treatments must be taken within the first five days of symptom onset and understand their role in reducing the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19. These efforts build on steps that the Administration has taken in recent weeks to help people access treatments, including the launch of COVID.gov, creating shareable infographics with clear test-and-treat messages, promoting test-and-treat messages on social media, launching the Test-to-Treat locator, and standing up a call center (800-232-0233) to provide help in English, Spanish, and more than 150 other languages. Building on its ongoing work with electronic health record companies to develop and disseminate information about COVID-19 treatments to providers, the Administration is also calling on these companies to incorporate information about oral antivirals directly into their health records interface. Today, the Administration is announcing new actions to make these treatments even easier to access and to make sure health care providers and patients know about their safety, efficacy, and availability. These sites will be targeted to meet demand and increase equitable access to lifesaving COVID-19 treatments and will function in direct collaboration with state and local health agencies. It is critical that health care providers stay informed about the latest information on effective COVID-19 treatments—including their benefits, contraindications, drug-to-drug interactions, and other side effects—so that they are in a position to quickly prescribe one of these treatments where appropriate.