A new document from the Minnesota Department of Health titled “Ethical Framework for Allocation of Monoclonal Antibodies during the COVID-19 Pandemic” indicates that people of color get priority over others looking to get an antibody treatment.
QUICK FACTS:
- A document released on Dec. 23 by the Minnesota Health Department stated that the use of Monoclonal Antibodies was to be triaged by patients’ ethnicity.
- The instructions state that “race and ethnicity alone, apart from other underlying health conditions, may be considered in determining eligibility for mAbs [monoclonal antibodies].”
- Minnesota has been forced to ration the antibodies, due to the high demand for the treatment, Summit News reports.
- The state’s solution to the lower demand has been to evaluate various health risk factors and assign a score to each person who requests the treatment.
- At this point, two of the factors that are given priority are those who are BIPOC which allows two points, and anyone pregnant, which garners four points.
- At this point, if two pregnant women requested the treatment, and one was a person of color while the other was a Caucasian, the person of color would receive the treatment.
OTHER FACTORS CONSIDERED:
- According to information received by Alpha News about the scoring system, there were points given for age, heart disease, respiratory disease, possible immune issues, and kidney disease.
- Every other metric seemed to in some way be related to personal health and what COVID’s impact might be on the individual.
BACKGROUND:
- The treatment in question is made up of antibodies to the COVID-19 virus that is created in a lab to mimic the body’s natural antibodies and fight off the disease.
- The widespread success of the antibodies has caused a national shortage because of their demand nationwide according to testing done by the National Institute for Health and others.
