An effective vaccine is key to blunting the impact of COVID-19, but that is at least a year or two away from broad availability. To bridge the gap between now and then, society will need antiviral treatments. AAF’s Health Care Data Analyst Andrew Strohman surveys several promising antiviral treatments and outlines steps policymakers can take to accelerate their development and delivery.

Strohman concludes:

In the battle to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States needs myriad tools at its disposal and the ability to act quickly. Antiviral and antibody therapies have demonstrated potential to provide a critical bridge between now and the time a vaccine becomes available. In order to facilitate these treatments, policymakers should act to implement serologic testing on a national scale and to implement the necessary policy and regulatory measures that would give health care providers the tools and knowledge they need as quickly as possible. Given the pace at which the pandemic has spread, speed is of the essence for treatments, and policymakers should therefore work to reduce regulatory barriers and streamline patients’ access to promising therapies.

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