{"id":1084,"date":"2021-11-16T21:26:37","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T02:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/?p=1084"},"modified":"2021-11-19T12:18:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T17:18:00","slug":"fortune-com-ratzan-quoted-in-antiviral-covid-pills-dont-eliminate-the-need-to-get-vaccinated-doctors-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/fortune-com-ratzan-quoted-in-antiviral-covid-pills-dont-eliminate-the-need-to-get-vaccinated-doctors-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortune.com: Ratzan Quoted in “Antiviral COVID pills don\u2019t eliminate the need to get vaccinated, doctors say”"},"content":{"rendered":"
BP2C Executive Director Dr. Scott Ratzan was quoted in a Fortune.com article titled, “Antiviral COVID pills don\u2019t eliminate the need to get vaccinated, doctors say<\/a>,” released on November 16 and authored by Felicia Hou. The full article is available below. In the article, Ratzan says, \u201cThe new COVID pills are a big deal but vaccinations will always be the cornerstone of our response to COVID. The oral medication represents a significant improvement in our ability to treat COVID and avert further deaths, but we must stay focused on fully vaccinating as many people as possible. Only a vaccine can control the rate at which a virus spreads and mutates.\u201d<\/h5>\n

Pfizer<\/a>\u00a0got a lot of attention when it\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0early this month that it had developed a COVID-19 antiviral pill, Paxlovidan, that dramatically reduced the risk of people with the virus being hospitalized or dying. In October,\u00a0Merck<\/a>\u00a0and Ridgeback landed another coup by revealing they had developed their own\u00a0oral antiviral pill<\/a>\u00a0that is somewhat less effective.<\/p>\n

Neither pill is publicly available in the U.S. But the federal government, in anticipation of the approval of both drugs, is trying to stock up on them or has already\u00a0reached a deal to do so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But doctors say that while antiviral pills\u2014even if approved\u2014may be effective against COVID-19 infections, getting vaccinated should be the priority for people who have yet to receive a jab. In short, it\u2019s \u201cbetter to prevent an infection than to try and treat it,\u201d Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center, a program led by the World Health Organization to provide accurate and up-to-date information about vaccines, told\u00a0Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Around 67% of the total U.S. population has\u00a0received<\/a>\u00a0at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But many people oppose getting a vaccine, and\u00a093 million people<\/a>\u00a0who are eligible for the shots have elected not to receive them.<\/p>\n

Rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths across the country have begun to decline,\u00a0according to the CDC<\/a>, at around 5,000 new hospital admissions and 1,100 deaths weekly. But some individual states have been grappling with increasing case rates. In Michigan, hospitalizations have increased\u00a0almost 20%<\/a>\u00a0in the past two weeks,\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0The Detroit News<\/em>, and COVID-19 cases are still\u00a0on the rise<\/a>\u00a0in New York City. But thanks to the rising number of vaccinated individuals, infections have become much less severe and life-threatening.<\/p>\n

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Medical experts are concerned that the news about the COVID pills will deter unvaccinated Americans from receiving their first shots. The doctors that spoke with\u00a0Fortune<\/em>\u00a0emphasized that it was critical to get vaccinated first, rather than dealing with the aftermath of a potential infection.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrevention and treatment must go hand in hand. It\u2019s important to have treatments in case people fall ill, but it\u2019s even better to prevent the disease in the first place,\u201d Dr. Leana Wen, public health professor at George Washington University, told\u00a0Fortune<\/em>\u00a0in an email. \u201cCovid-19 oral treatments are an important component of how we must learn to live with the virus\u2014though it does not replace preventing contracting the virus, and spreading it to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctors and vaccine experts across the globe agree that antiviral pills are no substitute for getting vaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new COVID pills are a big deal but vaccinations will always be the cornerstone of our response to COVID,\u201d Scott Ratzan, an expert in community health and a lecturer at City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health, told\u00a0Fortune<\/em>\u00a0in an email. In a preliminary study led by his team based on a survey of 3,000 U.S. citizens, one out of every eight participants said they would rather be treated with a pill after getting infected than get vaccinated before.<\/p>\n

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Ratzan said he was worried about disinformation and misinformation about the vaccine, and hopes that public confidence in vaccines increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oral medication represents a significant improvement in our ability to treat COVID and avert further deaths, but we must stay focused on fully vaccinating as many people as possible. Only a vaccine can control the rate at which a virus spreads and mutates,\u201d Ratzan added.<\/p>\n

Even executives from Pfizer stress that the new pill, which, when given to people with COVID during the early stages of their infection, prevented hospitalization or death in 89% of cases, is not an alternative to getting vaccinated. Choosing to forgo vaccination \u201cwould be a tragic mistake,\u201d Pfizer\u2019s chief executive Albert Bourla\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Reuters. Pfizer has asked the FDA for emergency use authorization for the drug, but it’s unclear exactly when or if it will get the green light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The pill from Merck and Ridgeback reduced the risk of hospitalization and death after infection by\u00a0<\/strong>50%. The FDA plans to meet on Nov. 30 to\u00a0review<\/a>\u00a0the trial data about the drug and make a decision about allowing it for emergency use.\u00a0<\/strong>The U.K.’s government has already\u00a0approved use of the pill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jerome Kim, director general of the International Vaccine Institute, a nonprofit established by the United Nations to dedicated to vaccinations for global health, also scrutinized the limitations of Pfizer\u2019s clinical trial, which was only performed on unvaccinated people. The trial also did not reveal whether the pill prevents transmission of the disease after one is already infected. He wrote to\u00a0Fortune<\/em>\u00a0that vaccines are more cost-effective than medication, and far more preventative for those who are experiencing little to no symptoms of the disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the amount of spread that occurs in the 85% of people who are mildly or asymptomatic, trying to treat your way out of a pandemic will be difficult if not impossible,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BP2C Executive Director Dr. Scott Ratzan was quoted in a Fortune.com article titled, “Antiviral COVID pills don\u2019t eliminate the need to get vaccinated, doctors say,” released on November 16 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions\/1086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesspartners2convince.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}