drug. if you can walk through how patients should try to get this drug and the fact that they have to get a test result quickly and take the drug within five days of symptoms. a lot of folks don t have primary care doctors, so will there be telemedicine or some way to get it through the pharmacy. how do you look at that and then with the sort of limited supply of it at the beginning, it is indicated just for high-risk people, but should there be prioritiation in those groups like even by vaccination status? talked for a second about the distribution plan and then over to dr. fauci for the medical questions. as we ve done with vaccines and monoclonals we ll distribute the pills in a fair and equitable way. the antivirals provided to states and jurisdictions at no charge on a pro rata basis to quickly get that supply in the field. as i mentioned in my comments as
hospitalizations and deaths are being fueled by those 50 and above who are unvaccinated, the better thing to do right now is a tailored approach. we need to target the vulnerable, get them vaccinated, get them boosted, and do everything we possibly can to get treatments to the market. because to keep people out of the hospital, that is what we can do. make sure there are workers there and keep patients out of the hospital. we have a lot of treatments that are anywhere from 30% to 90% effective from keeping people being hospitalized with covid. if they are given on. the patients need access to testing, their primary care doctors, and getting that to i may have had up an opinion about that. what was your take away from this afternoon? what the fudge is he talking about? ventilators? get the fudge out of here. that was my reaction. i didn t say fudge in my office. i am you didn t.
dr. holman to hear that that s what your doctors are subjected to, and you know, i just want to ask you about something that s controversial, but i have heard it mentioned a few times in the past couple of months from primary care doctors as well as celebrities, and that is why not have the unvaccinated go to the back of the line in terms of hospital care. when you say that people with cancer and heart attacks and strokes may not have a hospital bed, why not give them first preference and make the unvaccinated maybe not have a hospital bed. well, i certainly understand the emotion behind some of that. i think all of us went into health care have an understanding that we re here to serve everybody. in medical school, we frequently talk about the hippocratic oath. we re committed to take care of our population and communities. they depend on us no matter what the disease process is. someone could also make the similar argument, for example, someone with a self-inflicted disease of some
we want to call them that are people who had their second dose more than six months ago, and didn t get boosted yet, it s really unvaccinated people. if you re in a community or an area with significant numbers of people who are vaccinated and if people are basically wearing masks indoors, you know, as much as possible, i think you may be out of the woods. perhaps this becomes a very regional pandemic, but unfortunately the national numbers do go up because there are so many pockets of this country where vaccination rates are woefully low. people in our area, there s a very strong pattern of people who voted for the former president, people who watch fox news, don t believe in the vaccine, and i work in an area where 70% of the people voted for the former president, likely watch fox news and are getting information from people other than me, and their primary care doctors, they re getting it from people spreading disinformation. and not only do you have to then care for those people
primary care doctors. last month, republican governor ron desantis, appointed doctor joseph blood opposed to, be florida s surgeon general. he actually refuses to say, whether he is vaccinated. last week our next, desk florida state senator, had to ask him to leave her office, after he refused to wear a mask, even after she told him, that she has a serious medical condition. joining us now is democratic florida state senator, gina poll. ski her district is parts of robert and palm beach counties. thank you very much for joining us, tonight we very much appreciate it. we ve all right about this meeting, and it s reported as you throwing the surgeon general out of your office. because he, would not wear a mask. how, tell us how the dialogue went. he came in, and you asked him to wear a mask. in what happened?