On Tuesday, Walmart Inc. said that they would be a part of the recent program that was announced by President Biden earlier on the same day. The new program lets a person who has tested positive for the coronavirus to pick free antiviral pills in the course of the same visit.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden announced the new program to combat the spread of the virus. This new initiative was called a National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan. When he spoke of COVID-19 in his address, he had said that he could not promise that there would be no new variant but he could promise that his administration would double down on its efforts to tackle the virus.
On Wednesday’s press briefing, Jeff Zients, who is the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said that the president’s plan launched a “new test-to-treat initiative to provide individuals both testing and treatment for free, all in one stop.”
Zients said that hundreds of one-stop sites had opened across the nation this month. They were located at several places including local pharmacy clinics, community health centers and veteran health centers.
A spokesman from Walmart said that its centers in Arkansas, Georgia and Chicago would be a part of the new initiative from the Biden administration. Pharmacies, including Walmart and others have been playing a major role in helping the Biden administration combat the virus by setting up vaccines centers, providing home kits for testing as well as being the point where the nation’s citizens could pick free high quality N95 masks which offer better protection against the omicron variant of COVID-19.
President Biden has included the following antiviral pills for Americans who test positive at health centers or who get tested at major pharmacies such as Walmart, Walgreens and CVS.
Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid
Merck & Co. Inc.’s molnupiravir.
Both these antiviral pills have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration from December 2021 and have already been given to infected people by Walmart and other pharmacies. Now, due to the latest initiatives by the Biden administration, those who test positive for COVID-19 will be given the pills for free, at the very same time.
