Former president Donald Trump and influential podcast host Joe Rogan both received monoclonal antibody treatment to prevent their COVID-19 symptoms from getting worse.
Some vaccine skeptics who testified at the Honolulu City Council meeting last week asked why they couldn’t receive the same antibody treatment.
Someone can only receive a monoclonal antibody treatment if they contract the virus and are at a high risk of hospitalization. It cannot be administered once hospitalized. The purpose of the treatment is to prevent individuals who are at a high risk for developing severe COVID-19 from having worse symptoms.
The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency authorization to use the monoclonal antibody treatment as a preventative measure for immunocompromised people who had exposure to the virus.
If you are eligible for the monoclonal antibody treatment, the antibodies are administered through intravenous (IV) infusion. It can also be administered through four injections underneath the skin.
This treatment cannot be used as a replacement for the coronavirus vaccine. State Department of Health Director Libby Char explains why.
"It will temporarily boost your immune system just for that single exposure that you had. It’s gotta be done under a doctor’s order, and it has to be done under strict medical care. You get a dose of this and you have to sit at the site and get monitored for at least an hour so you don’t have side effects from that," she says.
Char emphasizes, "This is a very tailored treatment. It’s not something where you can go in a crowd and pass it out. It’s very tailored for specific situations. And it’s for those who are specifically immunocompromised."
There are currently not enough hospital staff to regularly administer the monoclonal antibody treatment for everyone who tests positive for COVID-19, Char says.
There have been over 10,000 positive cases in Hawaiʻi in the past two weeks.
