Joe Biden seems to be playing politics with people’s lives as he cut shipments of monoclonal antibodies to seven red states.
People treated with these antibodies have a much better chance of living and their symptoms are generally less severe. But, why would Biden cut shipments to the red states and why does the Biden administration have jurisdiction over the distribution of the drugs?
This is not the usual method of distribution.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Monday that they would henceforth be in charge of the distribution. They cite equity as the reason for usurping control.
It seems to me that since red states are faring so much better than blue states in dealing with COVID there would be motivation for Biden to see that deaths are distributed evenly between red and blue states. Of course, that is just speculation.
An HHS spokesman told the Washington Post:
“HHS will determine the amount of product each state and territory receives on a weekly basis. State and territorial health departments will subsequently identify sites that will receive the product and how much. This system will help maintain equitable distribution, both geographically and temporally, across the country — providing states and territories with consistent, fairly distributed supply over the coming weeks.”
The seven red states include Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. Florida has received the most doses of monoclonal antibodies, followed by Texas.
Florida received 30,950 doses of the antibodies this week, and had requested 72,000 doses.
DeSantis slammed President Joe Biden for the “abrupt” cut in monoclonal antibodies.
“We are very, very concerned with the Biden administration and the HHS’s recent, abrupt, sudden announcement that they are going to dramatically cut the number of monoclonal antibodies that are going to be sent to the state of Florida,” DeSantis said during a press conference on Thursday. “There’s going to be a huge disruption and patients are going to suffer as a result of this.”
“We’ve been thrown a major curveball here with a really huge cut,” DeSantis added. “We’re going to make sure we leave no stone unturned. Whoever needs a treatment, we’re going to work like hell to get them the treatment.”
