As the coronavirus pandemic transitions into what the White House hopes will be a “new normal,” the Biden administration has launched covid.gov, a federal website designed to help Americans infected with the virus get the to find the treatment they need.
“This site is part of our effort — our continued and ongoing effort — to make sure people have what they need to cope with Covid as we potentially move into the next phase of this disease,” the White House said on Tuesday Wednesday.
This new phase, aimed at helping the United States transition to “living with the virus,” has four main goals: protecting against and treating Covid-19, preparing for new variants, avoiding shutdowns, and fighting the virus abroad .
During his State of the Union address, President Biden pledged to establish a “test-to-treat” program “so that people can be tested at a pharmacy and, if they test positive, receive free antiviral pills on-site.”
This initiative began on March 8, but few Americans knew where to find one of the 2,000 participating websites, writes David Leonhardt in The Morning New York Times newsletter.
Treatments like Evusheld (a drug that appears to boost immunity in immunocompromised individuals) and antiviral pills like Pfizer’s Paxlovid (which is highly effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in people who are at high risk of developing serious illness from coronavirus infection exposed) “are common, but many people are unaware of them,” he writes. Covid.gov is trying to make the treatments more accessible.
On the site, people can also find the locations of vaccination and testing centers, as well as places to purchase quality masks; Fill out a form to order eight free at-home coronavirus tests per household. see their community’s risk level according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and get general information on Covid symptoms, treatment, testing and travel.
Much of this information, such as CDC community risk levels and test order forms, was already available elsewhere, but this site is intended to make it more convenient to get coronavirus-related information and supplies in one place, the White House said in a statement .
“We couldn’t have done this six or eight months ago because we didn’t have all the tools that we have now,” Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in an interview with NPR.
The website is available in English, Spanish and Chinese. The administration also makes all of these tools available by calling the national vaccine hotline at 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489), which supports over 150 languages.
The White House also said people can still be tested and treated by their own healthcare providers, who can prescribe Covid antivirals at locations where they are distributed.
In the past two weeks, the United States has seen a 12 percent drop in average daily cases, according to a New York Times database. Over the same period, hospital admissions have fallen by 33 percent and deaths by 44 percent.