When the Biden administration announced a short time ago it was commandeering control of a COVID-19 treatment, using monoclonal antibodies, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose state has been distributing them widely and successfully, vowed to respond.
Now he has, with confirmation that the state will be acquiring, directly, its own supplies.
The Star News Network reveals that DeSantis has reached an agreement for Florida to purchase thousands of monoclonal antibody treatments directly from GlaxoSmithKline, which makes it.
The report explained, “The move by DeSantis bypasses a restriction placed by President Joe Biden’s administration, allowing the federal government to dictate allocations to each state and leave it to state leaders to ration it out among locations.”
The report noted Florida had been getting some 30,000 doses, but that was cut, under Biden’s management, to about 18,000.
DeSantis plans will add some 3,000 doses immediately.
“We should be doing everything we can to get patients monoclonal antibody treatments, not cutting allocations of treatment like the Biden Administration has done,” the governor explained.
“Despite the cuts by the federal government, we want any Floridians that could benefit from this treatment to have access to it. Florida is going to leave no stone unturned when finding treatment for our state, and we are encouraged to have secured a shipment of monoclonal antibody treatments from GlaxoSmithKline.”
Studies have shown the treatment allows more COVID-19 patients to avoid hospital stays when they get it early on.
“The monoclonal antibody program has really been a game changer here in the state of Florida,” explained Dr. Larry Antonucci, chief of Lee Health. “[Monoclonal antibody treatments are] making people better… It’s key to keeping them out of the hospital… I want to thank the governor and his whole team for doing this.”
The treatment DeSantis acquired is similar to Regeneron, the specific brand of monoclonal antibody treatment that former President Trump received when testing positive for the coronavirus.
But federal regulators insist that product be available only to the federal government, while the GlaxoSmithKline product is available to others.
When the Biden administration decided to take over the allocation of the treatments, DeSantis charged the Democrats in the White House were targeting Republican states.
He warned people will “suffer as a result” of Biden’s actions.
“We were happy to see that Biden’s COVID plan announced last week included a 50% increase in monoclonal antibody deliveries to states this month,” DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw told Fox News in a recent statement. “So it’s surprising and deeply disappointing that the Biden Admin would break this promise just a week later and cut MAB allocation to Florida, so they aren’t even providing half of the doses of life-saving treatment that COVID patients in Florida will need.”