BONUS - The Obstacles Slowing Down America's "Test-to-Treat" Program for COVID-19
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2022
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The federal "test-to-treat" program was designed to reduce hospitalizations and deaths by getting antivirals to people who test positive for COVID-19 as quickly as possible. Hannah Recht, a reporter at Kaiser Health News who has written about the topic, talks to Stephanie Desmon about how confusing websites, lack of up-to-date information and costs have kept many of the neediest from receiving prompt care.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 5 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore, Maryland. |
| 0:21.7 | Our goal with this podcast is to bring scientific evidence and experience to shed light on critical |
| 0:27.5 | health issues. If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health |
| 0:33.0 | question at jhhhu.edu. That's public health question at jhhut.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:42.6 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of public health on call. Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to |
| 0:47.7 | Hannah Recht, a reporter at Kaiser Health News, about her recent story about the government's |
| 0:52.5 | COVID-19 test-to-treat program, |
| 0:55.4 | a new way to get antivirals to eligible patients while they would still be effective, |
| 1:00.0 | and why it isn't working exactly as intended. |
| 1:03.2 | This interview was recorded on April 20th. |
| 1:05.8 | Let's listen. |
| 1:08.0 | Hannah Wreck, thanks so much for joining me. |
| 1:10.4 | Yeah, thank you for having me. |
| 1:12.2 | I really want to talk to you about your recent article in Kaiser Health News about the federal |
| 1:18.1 | test to treat program. |
| 1:20.1 | So I understand it was meant to reduce hospitalizations and deaths by getting antivirals |
| 1:24.9 | to people who test positive quickly. And I'm curious if you could tell us a little more about the program and how it's supposed to work. |
| 1:31.9 | Yeah, the test to treat program, just like you said, is meant to help people who have COVID or think |
| 1:36.7 | they may have COVID and haven't gotten tested yet to get that testing, get that treatment, |
| 1:40.9 | and get antiviral pills in their hands if they qualify for them as quickly as |
| 1:44.8 | possible. There are two different antiviral pills on the market now called Paxlivid and Ligavrio, |
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