Minnesota Hospitals Short on COVID Treatments

(KNSI) – Despite improvements in treating people suffering from COVID-19, St. Cloud doctors say there’s little they can do to help most sick people right now. CentraCare Health says they have some new treatments that will help save lives, but CentraCare COVID-19 Incident Commander Dr. George Morris says the problem is they don’t have enough to deal with the current wave of illness.

“The manufacturers, it takes time for them to produce the materials, much like you can say some of the early days of the COVID vaccine, where we didn’t have a ton of it available because it was new.”

Hospitals are already filled in St. Cloud and across the state. He says it will take time before the supply will catch up with demand.

“But that could be months away from now. And between now, and then what we’re seeing is a lot of potentials for omachron, to come as a huge, you know, tsunami sized wave, blasts our community and then move on.”

Some of the treatments in short supply include monoclonal antibodies, Regeneron and oral antiviral medication. In some instances, around 1000 Minnesotans could benefit from the treatments, but only 24 doses are available for the entire state.

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