Tracking Down Antibody Treatment Is A Challenge For COVID-19 Patients

Monoclonal antibody drugs are supposed to help people with mild to moderate COVID-19 avoid the hospital, but it can be a challenge to find out where the treatment is offered. NPR has heard from people across the country who have been frustrated by this.

They include Shirley Wagoner, an 80-year-old who still hits the ski slopes and helps run the family plumbing business in Spokane Valley, Wash.

First, her sons fell ill and were diagnosed with COVID-19. Then on the Monday after Christmas she came down with the symptoms of a bad cold, including a sore throat and laryngitis.

She went to her doctor's office for a coronavirus test and learned on New Year's Eve that she was also sick.

Her son-in-law, Myron Lee, who lives near Chicago, had been tracking the disease closely and knew his mother-in-law would be a candidate for treatment with monoclonal antibodies.