In the comment section after my previous post, Garrett provided another nice example of how America’s doctors are making us sick:
My wife (early 30s) caught covid a few weeks ago. She noticed a scratchy throat on a Sunday night after we’d been out for dinner Friday night, and by that Tuesday she was bedridden with a fever nearing 103. For the next two days she couldn’t work or anything. I’d read about how paxlovid is a wonder-drug so I read up on the prescribing guidelines and saw that one of the risk factors is asthma.
She scheduled a telehealth visit and spoke with a provider that Thursday afternoon via videocall. The doctor basically told her that paxlovid is for people over 65 and she didn’t need it because she’d get over it in the next couple days, but that if she’s worried about her asthma she’d prescribe her a different inhaler. My wife was too exhausted to stand up for herself so I had to step in and insist for it.
I had the prescribing guidelines up on my phone but the doctor wouldn’t budge. I eventually said this is ridiculous, there’s no shortage of paxlovid, and sentencing my wife to another week of sickness was malpractice. My wife kicked me out of the room for that lol, so I walked the dog to cool off.
When I came back though my wife said she got the prescription. After I left the room the doctor said “I don’t think you need it but if your husband insists I’ll prescribe it.” She took the pills a few hours later and just like Scott she immediately felt better!
Yes, this case had a happy ending. But how many of us would have persevered as Garrett did?
What about the argument that there is a limited supply of Paxlovid and that it should be reserved for those most in need? Unless your name is Matt Yglesias, the elasticity of supply is probably much higher than you think. Recall how the vaccine companies produced far more doses than their supposed “capacity” allowed. The same is true of Paxlovid. This is from last November:
The efficacy data for Pfizer’s oral COVID-19 drug now look so appealing that the Big Pharma company is boosting manufacturing capacity even before an expected emergency use authorization from the FDA.
Pfizer now expects to make 80 million courses of COVID drug Paxlovid by the end of 2022, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., told CNBC during a Monday interview. The company previously said it plans to have capacity to make 50 million courses.
The revelation came after Merck reported the risk reduction in hospitalization and death from its Ridgeback Therapeutics-partnered COVID antiviral, molnupiravir, fell from 50% to 30% in the final analysis. The updated result fueled expectations of increased demand for Paxlovid, which has shown an 89% risk reduction in outpatients.
So as soon as its rival ran into problems, Pfizer miraculously discovered even more “capacity” than they had assumed.
In early November, Pfizer projected it could produce 50 million courses of the treatment in 2022; then, by late in the month, the company bumped that estimate up to 80 million. Monday, during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., took it a big step further.
“We have confidence that we can make 120 million treatments this year,” Bourla said. “That’s 3.6 billion tablets. That’s a very big capacity. But it is doable.”
But why stop there?
But wait, there’s more. The company is working to add more capacity by the end of this year, because several countries have indicated an interest in stockpiling the treatment, Bourla said. Unlike vaccines, this is an option with Paxlovid because the pill has a shelf-life of three years.
“If those discussions progress, we will have to do more than 120 (million), so this is where we are aiming now,” Bourla said.
PS. Demand is also more elastic than you think. When I was young, my dad used to say that cigarette taxes won’t stop anyone from smoking, as the product is addictive. Much later in life, my mom told me that she had smoked when she was young, something I’d never known (and couldn’t even imagine.) I asked why she’d stopped. “When your father and I got married, we decided that we could only afford one smoker in the family.” Sadly, I was never able to confront my dad with this counterargument, as he died from emphysema at age 68. My mom just turned 96 on Tuesday.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Jun 10 2022 at 1:49pm
My friend got Covid, and also got Paxlovid–but found that she couldn’t swallow those damn horse pills! (They’re capsules, so you can’t just chop them in half.) So she just rode out the illness.
David Henderson
Jun 10 2022 at 1:52pm
Please give my belated birthday wishes to your mom and tell her that she and your dad produced a fine man.
Rodrigo
Jun 10 2022 at 2:07pm
I took my wife to the emergency room when she had covid. I asked the first doctor for paxlovid, she did not know what that was. The second said she was young therefore did not need it. I insisted on a prescription but then her argument was that the side effect of the drug are very bad therefore she does not like prescribing unless absolutely necessary. I then explained I was worried because she is asthmatic, still the doctor did not prescribe paxlovid. Instead we walked out with a prescription for a round of steroids. I could not believe it. Apparently doctors dislike the drug because it does not have a full fda approval only emergency use authorization. Here in El Salvador the government automatically sends paxlovid along other meds to anyone that test positive. Deaths are extremely low.
Rodrigo
Jun 10 2022 at 2:10pm
(Emergency room event was in the states)
Scott Sumner
Jun 10 2022 at 2:53pm
“I insisted on a prescription but then her argument was that the side effect of the drug are very bad”
It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that so many medical professionals could be totally uninformed on the biggest public health crisis in 100 years.
Jose Pablo
Jun 10 2022 at 5:36pm
why?, as you frequently point out there is a lot of economic professionals totally uninformed about the true nature of “inflation”.
Scott Sumner
Jun 10 2022 at 6:00pm
There’s a difference between differences of opinion and ignorance of simple factual questions.
David Henderson
Jun 10 2022 at 5:13pm
Re elasticity of demand and your mom’s story, one thing that stopped me from drinking much when I was in graduate school from age 21 to 24 was the price charged by bars. I was on a very tight budget and I wanted to emerge from graduate school debt-free. (I came within $1,000, in 1975 dollars, of doing so.) Once I had established the very moderate-drinking habit, I carried it on even when I had a nice salary.
Jose Pablo
Jun 12 2022 at 11:11am
I can afford drinking as much as I want. I don’t drink because drinking makes me less fit and reduces my chances of success with women.
I mean, I should be allowed to be “the master of my vices, the captain of my dark soul”.
I welcome every advice, I resist any imposition (including “nudges”)
MIchael Sandifer
Jun 10 2022 at 5:35pm
Your story concerning your dad makes your position on vice taxes even more puzzling to me. I, and even most economsts, seem to think that the tobacco taxes have been an example of exemplary public policy, but you don’t agree.
Granted, in place like New York, the taxes have probably been too high at times, given evidence of a black market, but overall, smoking and related illness is way down, so I’d most of us see present policy as a great success, and compatible with what we’re all taught in econ 101.
Scott Sumner
Jun 10 2022 at 5:59pm
I favor vice taxes where there are strong negative externalities.
Matthias
Jun 17 2022 at 8:35am
Depending on where you live, smoking can have strong positive externalities.
Basically, smoking is obnoxious.
But smokers generally stay productive members of society throughout their working life, but have a tendency to die relatively quickly after reaching retirement age.
I assume people prefer not to die, but that cost is already naturally internalised. However, if you have a public pension system like Germany or like social security in the US, an early departure is good for those systems’ accounts.
Garrett
Jun 11 2022 at 12:24am
Thanks for reposting my story Scott. I have to add, if I wasn’t reading Zvi’s weekly covid posts for the last two years I wouldn’t have been as informed. I recommend everyone check him out, even if the pandemic isn’t affecting everyday life as much as it was before. Usually posts on Thursday’s.
Todd Kreider
Jun 11 2022 at 5:45pm
Zvi has gotten a lot wrong about Covid the past 2 1/2 years up to his most recent posts.
Scott Sumner
Jun 13 2022 at 12:25am
Given your track record, I’ll take that as a recommendation!
Vernon Smith
Jun 11 2022 at 10:18am
My father died of a heart attack, age 64; his older brother died of a heart attack about same age. Their parents both lived into their 90s. I am 96, strong healthy heart, now surviving from Covid infection, feeling good. Work every day in my study writing and publishing articles and 2 books, one soon to appear by PalgravesMacMillan, followed by a vol II. Writing a book on Propriety, Property, And Price Discovery in Adam Smith’s theory of Society and Economy.
Both my dad and uncle were smokers; I was not. A sample of one but with a clear lesson to the young. Don’t Smoke.
Scott Sumner
Jun 11 2022 at 1:18pm
Thanks for commenting and glad to hear you are recovering.
Michael Rulle
Jun 13 2022 at 2:13pm
I tested positive for Covid on Monday, May 30th. I had started to feel what later I realized were symptoms on Friday, May 27th.
May 3oth was peak Covid for me. I could not stand, I was short of breath, I was moaning like a sick dog, had a fever, needed to be helped to my bed—-my eyes were closed and could not come close to walking on my own. I was in bed for 16 hours or so—sweating, coughing and sleeping on and off.
I got up June 1st in the morning. I never heard of Paxlovid. I went to an Urgent Care center—-felt 80% better—but they tested me (still had it). They gave me a bunch of magic potients (C, D3, Lysinil, some nasal cleanser and 1 or 2 other things). But even if I heard of Paxlovid it might have been too late to take it—5 days from first symptoms.
I cannot believe the doctor did not mention this medicine.
As a side story—-My sister in law and her 20 year old son (total IQ—-maybe 3 digits—very mean I know) were here for a week —-and on the 26th they told us they had Covid. I actually believed they had some form of Munchausen syndrome as they said it was the 3rd time they had it. I did not believe them.
They may have Munchausen, but, —— I got it–as did my wife, my 89 year old mother-in law, our housekeeper and her husband (who have lived with us for 30+ years), —basically a clean sweep of the house.
As my wife says, her mother is strong as a mule—-had the least symptoms. I had the worse.
My college’s 50th reunion (fun but also a bit freaky) was on June 8th-1oth–I sent a note to our Facebook group saying I was not coming due to Covid—there was universal pushback (they probably think I have Munchausen)–so I went.
Am waiting to see if it was a super spreader—but they will probably get Paxlovid.
Luke J
Jun 14 2022 at 7:28pm
I was just telling a friend that no one cares about supply & demand elasticity and undergraduates should never again hear of or be asked to calculate using mid-point method. S Sumner again with the reminder that micro economic principals are indeed useful
Matthias
Jun 17 2022 at 8:36am
Are you saying that no one should care about those elasticities, or that it is a shame that people don’t care; or something else?
DeservingPorcupine
Jun 17 2022 at 10:04am
I of course think people should be able to use medicines no matter what the efficacy, but the latest Pfizer trial results suggest Paxlovid is not so effective.
Comments are closed.