Utah eliminates race and gender as factors in monoclonal antibody COVID treatments after ‘legal concerns’

After complaints from right-wing media figures, Utah eliminates race and gender as factors in allocating its limited supply of monoclonal antibodies and antiviral treatments for COVID-19.

Based on clinical data that showed men and patients of color were at increased risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19, state health officials previously included both markers as factors. of risk to determine who is eligible for the popular but extremely rare COVID-19. 19 treatments.

But the Utah Department of Health announced on Friday that it was now eliminating race and gender in its determinations, citing “legal concerns”.

The move comes less than two weeks after Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed health officials in Utah and other states were prioritizing people of color. in order to “punish” white people. Carlson, however, did not object to the award rules that prioritized males.

Two days later, America First Legal — a conservative advocacy group founded by former White House staffer Stephen Miller — threatened to sue Utah for including race and ethnicity in his risk calculator. Like Carlson, the AFL did not object to the priority given to men.

Now both factors have been removed from the criteria Utah uses to calculate the “risk score” of patients which determines whether they are eligible for treatment.

“As with the protected breed class, providing additional points based on gender raises legal issues,” UDOH spokesman Tom Hudachko wrote in a news release Friday afternoon. Hudachko also noted that new data, requested by the UDOH, showed a weaker link between the risk of hospitalization and gender.

But at the same time, the updated data seems to show an even stronger link between the risk of serious illness and race.

Earlier this month, the UDOH reported that “non-white” or Hispanic patients were 35% to 50% more likely to be hospitalized due to the coronavirus. Updated figures on Friday showed an increased risk of hospitalization of at least 40% for Latino patients, 50% for Asian Americans, 80% for Native Americans and 130% for Native Hawaiian patients. and Pacific Islanders.

“Instead of using race and ethnicity as a factor in determining eligibility for treatment, UDOH will work with communities of color to improve access to treatment by placing medications in locations easily accessible by these populations. and working to connect members of these communities to available treatments,” Hudachko wrote.

The UDOH has not identified these locations. He also did not specify the law under which the old eligibility calculator “raises legal problems”.

Hudachko wrote that the changes come “in response to extremely limited supplies of these treatments, to ensure that classifications in the risk assessment are consistent with federal law and new guidance issued by the National Institutes of Health.”

The new risk calculator also changes who automatically qualifies for treatments.

Previously, anyone who tested positive while living in a “collective” setting – nursing homes, homeless shelters, prisons and prisons, for example – automatically qualified, without calculating a risk score. The same was true for unvaccinated and pregnant Utahns, as well as all immunocompromised Utahns.

Now most of these Utahns should be noted under the risk calculator.

“Only the highest risk immunocompromised conditions will be prioritized without using the risk score calculator,” Hudachko said.

Some of these factors – pregnancy and certain immunocompromised conditions – will continue to be considered. But the UDOH hasn’t released the new scoring criteria or responded to inquiries from the Salt Lake Tribune about it, so it’s unclear how much weight they carry.

Meanwhile, state officials have added a new group that will automatically be considered eligible for treatment: unvaccinated Utahns age 75 or older.

Since the UDOH has not released updated criteria for risk scoring, it is unclear how many “points” certain medical conditions and age groups receive or whether the thresholds to qualify for the treatments remain the same.

Previously, unvaccinated patients needed a score of 7.5 and vaccinated patients needed a score of 10. Age was the most significant scoring criterion, with half a point added for each decade of seniority. Some high-risk medical conditions added one or two points each; males received an additional point and colored patients received two additional points.

Utah tightened its criteria for monoclonal antibodies and new antiviral drugs earlier this month as the supply of treatments dwindled.

Monoclonal antibodies, along with a new antiviral drug Pfizer, have been shown to reduce coronavirus symptoms if given soon after infection. The treatments were especially popular in areas with low vaccination rates.

But now the available supply of these treatments is much less than a few weeks ago, health officials said. This is partly because, of the three versions of monoclonal antibodies that were available, only one is effective against the omicron variant. This treatment is rare nationwide as the highly transmissible variant increasingly infects high-risk patients.

In previous months, Utah had been able to order up to 1,300 treatments per week. In recent weeks, these allocations have fallen to 500 to 800 courses. As of Friday, there were more than 500 active cases among residents of Utah nursing homes alone.

“While these treatments show promise for those most at risk of hospitalization, the supply of these treatments is scarce,” said Dr. Michelle Hofmann, deputy director of UDOH, in a statement. “Vaccination, including booster doses, remains the best route out of the pandemic. We all need to do our part to help our state through this crisis. »