Why was "Test to Treat" Never Implemented?

Biden's State of the Union comment highlights everything wrong with how the medical community has approached COVID.

Imagine for a little moment, if you may, this scenario:

You go out, mingle with some friends and family, and a few days later you start to come down with a cough, a slight fever, and a stuffy nose. You decide to go to get tested for COVID at a pharmacy, and at that time you find out you were positive.

Immediately afterwards, you are provided medications to deal with your illness- they were being filled the moment you came in for testing. You grab your prescription, head home and start treating your disease.

It sounds like a great idea. Phenomenal, even. In fact it sounds like the type of idea that should have been implemented right at the beginning of the Pandemic.

The question is, why hasn’t it?

Just now President Biden discussed COVID in his State of the Union Address, and in part of his speech he referred to Pfizer’s drug (not by name) and that 1 million doses will be released this month, with double that hopefully released next month.

Pfizer’s drug may seem promising, although the original cost for one regimen hovered around $500 dollars. However, it appears that PAXLOVID will come at either no cost or for very little cost to the American people.

Taken from goodrx.com’s article on PAXLOVID.

Great, how benevolent of Pfizer to provide nearly a million doses at no cost to the American people. Because that’s how these things tend to work out don’t they?

Maybe we should all pay attention to our tax rates this year, just in case…

It’s been a strange State of the Union Address so to speak. It certainly wavered between fist shaking at pharmaceutical companies while also patting them on the back for such a good job they have done! We’re supposedly both cutting the costs of prescriptions, targeting the pharmaceutical industries, but also are receiving a million doses of a drug that would originally cost $500 at near to no charge?

But that’s not the point of me rushing to write this ramble.

President Biden made a remark how there will be a “test to treat” plan implemented moving forward. How does that “test to treat” plan work? Well, it works exactly the way I described it above. Essentially, you walk into a pharmacy, get tested for COVID (likely an antigen test), and then get a prescription of PAXLOVID filled right on the spot.

Simple, easy, and effective, no?

But here’s the kicker then; if this scenario is as simple and easy as we would assume it to be, why has no attempt ever been made to implement such a plan?

Imagine if, over the past two years, we decided to come with an idea that you contact your healthcare provider, alert them that you are getting a COVID test, and they tell you that they will have a prescription ready to immediately contact a pharmacist or it will be filled as you get your test?

Take into consideration that we know full well that early treatment is the best way to tackle COVID, and possibly any type of disease. Early treatment is everything.

So again, why has such a protocol never been attempted?

Is it because rapid antigen tests were never so widely available until now?

Well, you would think that production of rapid antigen tests would fall under the Defense Act, and even then PCR tests were widely available for a long time.

Is it because no approved therapeutics were available?

This one is a bit frustrating to rationalize. Sure, let’s start with the idea that both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are not effective against COVID. I won’t claim whether they are effective or not, but let’s start with this premise and put it into perspective.

Let’s take the scenario at the top sans receiving a prescription to treat COVID. You’ve also been told that there are bodies piling up in pits in New York, that ICUs all across the country are being completely overwhelmed. Essentially, you are told that you and your family are likely to die from COVID.

At the point you find out that you have COVID, and after being inundated with all of this fear mongering, do you think it sensible to just go home empty-handed and heavy-hearted?

As hyperbolic as this sounds, let’s face the reality that many people were told to just go home and hope that they don’t turn blue.

I remember that scenario when I was completely bought into this line of thinking. I went to get a PCR test in the summer of 2020 at a drive-in site, had my nose swabbed, and was handed this little sheet. Remember, I believed that if I had COVID both me and my family were at risk.

I wish I had kept the pamphlet, but it essentially told me to make sure to stay home, drink plenty of fluids, take Tylenol when I had a fever, and then immediately call 911 as soon as I had trouble breathing. So it may be anecdotal, but I know full well for millions of Americans this same scenario played out without any prospect of help.

And that brings us to this new question: If you believed you had something that would severely hurt you and your family, wouldn’t you try something rather than nothing?

Remember that these same sentiments were made many weeks ago in my post on “Dealing with COVID”, and Kim Iversen even mentioned it in her Radar when treating family members ill with Omicron.

Again, I will not argue about whether Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine are effective against fighting COVID, but once again is it better to try something than nothing, especially when you are told you and your family are in danger of becoming severely ill and dangerous?

The idea that at this point in time, more than two years into this pandemic, when Omicron has essentially attenuated any major concerns over COVID, that somehow the way to deal with COVID is to now have a joint venture between the government and pharmaceutical companies to provide a drug that has not had long-standing measures of safety and efficacy at the cost of all taxpayers is absolutely, patently, absurd.

In fact, this is quite infuriating. It is as if nothing will be tried aside for us to lament over the fact that nothing has been tried. It’s circular logic that has encompassed any approach that many within the medical community has taken to COVID.

I’m fortunate that my family were not dealt a bad hand with COVID, but the same cannot be said for many other families.

To act that now is the time to implement an approach to COVID that should have been used well at the beginning of COVID spits in the face of all those who have lost loved ones or had a serious battle with COVID. Even now, do we have any word on encouraging supplementation, exercise or proper sleep and reducing stress and anxiety?

This announcement does nothing more than encapsulate the parochial approach to COVID that believes that this is truly the only real way to properly deal with the disease. Of course, all this means is that our tax dollars are being used to funnel towards pharmaceutical companies.

Now, even after all of this rambling we should beware that this plan was only proposed, and may not be implemented. God knows how slow the government tends to work!

But whether this idea comes to fruition, we still cannot let go of the fact that we went nearly two years without even considering taking a proactive approach to fighting the pandemic. We also have to be aware that PAXLOVID is being paid for somehow, so regardless if it will be provided immediately or still take some time, it will still come at the cost to the American taxpayers.