First the good news: With the FDA emergency use authorization of Pfizer's antiviral Paxlovid, there's a new weapon in our artillery to fight COVID -- and a strong one too.
With data showing it's 89% effective in preventing hospitalizations, doctors are lauding it as a way to alleviate stress from our hospitals and save lives.
"What Paxlovid will be able to do is limit our hospitalization use and our ICU use," said family physician Dr. Daliah Wachs. "It will limit severe COVID.”
Now the bad news: It's still in very limited supply.
"I know that the governor and his staff talk about it all the time with the federal government, but every jurisdiction, every country, is fighting for the same resources," said Dave Weust, executive secretary of the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy. "We have to state our case for it."
Wuest says the allocation is controlled by the federal government.
"They allocate the number of treatments to us," he said. "[We] are doing everything we can to increase our allocation, but we are at the mercy of what the allocation is.”
The state first got enough to treat 480 people in early January, and just recently got another allocation.
"To date, we’ve been allocated 1,200 therapy courses [enough to treat 1,200 people], which is not enough for everybody to get it if they need it."
It's an issue nationwide, as Pfizer is working to ramp up supply to meet the order of the U.S. government. In early January, President Joe Biden directed his team to double the order of the pills from 10 million to 20 million.
"We may need even more. That's the estimate we need right now," said the president. "They're a game-changer."
A senior official told CBS News producing the pills "takes a long time because of its complex synthetic manufacturing process" and that by the end of January, "there will be 4 million COVID-19 treatments available to Americans, a mix of monoclonal antibodies, pre-exposure prevention treatments, and antiviral pills."
The limited supply and prediction that it will take months before these pills are widespread are drawing criticism from some.
Meanwhile, Wuest says the state is working fervently to get more.
"We are doing everything we can as fast as we can," he said. "It’s just a limited supply at this point.”
He says the lion's share of our allocation is going to patients in long-term facilities: the most vulnerable and most likely to go to the hospital.
A UMC spokesperson told News 3 it first received enough Paxlovid to treat 40 people and said they provided the last doses of that initial shipment last week. However, they just got a second allocation to treat 100 more people.
Because it's limited, not everyone qualifies.
"It’s indicated for those who are at risk for severe, so if you have diabetes, if you’re immunocompromised, if you have HIV, transplant, cancer," said Dr. Wachs.
It must also be given within five days of getting symptoms.
It's highly effective, but Wuest still issues this caution:
"The current therapies are so scarce that vaccination is still the best protection anyone can get against COVID."
For locations for Covid treatments and where to find them, click here.