Last week the governor allocated $60M in federal funding to go toward contracts for a total of 750 nurses that will be available to work at qualifying hospitals for an 8 weeks period.
To qualify, hospitals need to establish that they have a protocol for using a particular brand-name monoclonal antibody treatment called Rogeneron and that they offer “vaccination at discharge”.
Rogeneron is a product that is under EUA for treatment of the persons at highest risk of progressing to severe COVID. That list includes older age, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The product can be useful if used early in the infection but has a nominal effect once the disease progresses to severe symptoms. ADHS will write the nursing contracts and approve hospital participation (and scale).
This extraordinary $60M measure became necessary in large part because of the governor’s hostility toward evidence-based and effective interventions like universal masking in crowded indoor spaces and in classrooms.
The chains of transmission that end up infecting and hospitalizing mainly unvaccinated persons frequently start in crowded indoor environments where people aren’t wearing masks. The governor has prohibited cities and counties from imposing universal masking requirements.
Beginning September 29, he will also begin banning mask mandates in classrooms. He is already paying schools extra to jeopardize student health and safety if they DO NOT implement universal mask requirements.
