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Thousands of doses of Covid therapeutics and preventive treatments are sitting unusued in Michigan.
The reasons: Some doctors hesitate to prescribe without learning more about them, case rates are at a one-year low in the state and hospitalizations are down, the Detroit Free Press says.
"The issue in the beginning had been that we thought demand would outpace supply and that didn't really happen in the state of Michigan or in most of the country," Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the state's chief medical executive, tells the paper.
These are among drugs that the state had hoped to see distributed more broadly:
► Evusheld, an antibody therapy for the immunocompromised who may not respond well to vaccines. Clinical trials showed it protects 77 percent of vulnerable people from developing Covid for as long as six months after the double-injection treatment.
► Antiviral pills Paxlovid, Molnupiravir and bebtelovimab that can be administered soon after a person is infected to reduce the risk of hospitalization.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on ABC's "This Week" that people need to decide what risks they’re willing to take.
“This is not going to be eradicated, and it’s not going to be eliminated,” he said. “And what’s going to happen is that we’re going to see that each individual is going to have to make their calculation of the amount of risk that they want to take in going to indoor dinners and in going to functions.”
A rise in cases is concerning, he said, but isn't cause for alarm. The country reports more than 31,000 new cases a day, a 3-percent increase from two weeks ago, The New York Times says.
