How Feds Decide On Remdesivir Shipments To States Remains Mysterious

By the second week in July, COVID-19 cases in North Carolina were climbing fast.

With nearly 19,000 diagnoses over the previous two weeks, only five states recorded more new coronavirus cases than North Carolina did.

"Today is our highest day of hospitalizations and our second-highest day of cases," Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, announced on July 9, standing behind a podium in the state's Emergency Operations Center. "Please continue to treat the virus like the deadly threat that it is."

One of the few treatment options for patients seriously ill with COVID-19 is the antiviral drug remdesivir. Authorized by the Food and Drug Administration in May for emergency use in the pandemic, remdesivir is in short supply. The federal government has taken on the responsibility for deciding where vials of the medicine should go.

Between July 6 and July 19, the federal Department of Health and Human Services allocated shipments of remdesivir to 31 states.

North Carolina wasn't one of them. ...

Things appeared to have gotten better since the early days of remdesivir distribution in May when hospitals seemingly got their remdesivir allocation at random. But doctors around the country say they still don't fully understand HHS' system for distributing the drug.

NPR attempted to dig into federal data to understand how the government was making its decisions about remdesivir, but only a few of the data points used in the allocation process are public. Still, NPR has learned that some states, such as North Carolina, appear to have at times been allocated insufficient amounts of remdesivir, while others were offered more than they needed. ...