(WASHINGTON) — Nationwide distribution of one of the last remaining monoclonal antibody treatments is being paused “effective immediately” since it has shown to be ineffective against the COVID-19 BA.2 subvariant now dominating every region of the country, an internal letter sent Tuesday afternoon from the federal government to states and obtained by ABC News said.

States and stakeholders should not expect any further shipments of sotrovimab, from GSK and Vir Biotechnology, from which the Food and Drug Administration has pulled authorization nationwide.

Sotrovimab was one of two monoclonal therapies in the U.S. arsenal that worked against previous variants. Now, the omicron subvariant has shown to chip away at its efficacy.

The government and FDA had already been incrementally limiting sotrovimab distribution in pockets of the country where BA.2 had been creeping up as the prevailing COVID strain. Tuesday, the FDA announced it would pull back authorization completely.

The agency said it will continue to monitor BA.2’s spread across the country, and that doctors and patients should use one of the other treatments that have held up against BA.2 — the one other monoclonal that still works, bebtelovimab from Eli Lilly; Paxlovid, or the antiviral pills from Pfizer; or molnupiravir from Merck.

Monoclonals have become a mainstay in our COVID medicine cabinet. Their ability to curb hospitalization rates, particularly among unvaccinated high-risk patients, has made them a key component in Biden’s COVID plan.

But new evolving strains of the virus have forced health care officials to recalibrate existing treatments — and this is not the first time the U.S. has seen COVID treatments get shut down when a new variant of concern stymies its efficacy.

GSK tells ABC it is prepping further data on whether a higher dose would hold up better against the omicron subvariant, which it’s sharing with relevant health and regulatory bodies.

The internal letter urges health care providers to make sure they are up to date with which variants impact what treatments, since it’s constantly shifting — and for providers to be aware of the variant makeup in their region in order to “guide treatment decisions” in an optimal way for their patients.

Meanwhile, the national COVID-19 medicine cabinet is once again getting whittled down by new variants and by limited supplies.

Weekly allocations of many COVID therapies had already been scaled down while further COVID relief funding stalled in Congress, and the government cut back on the amount of treatments shipped to states.

Though Senate negotiators had struck a deal for $10 billion in additional funding, its passage is far from guaranteed. It is unclear if this slimmed-down version of what the White House wanted will cover the country’s needs should another infection surge emerge. Without sufficient funding, the White House previously said the U.S. supply of the antiviral pills like Paxlovid could run out by September.

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(NEW YORK) — As the nation approaches the grim milestone of 1 million lives confirmed lost to COVID-19, a new report reveals the “devastating and disproportionate” impact of the virus on low-income communities in the U.S., offering an initial analysis of the deadly consequences of poverty, economic insecurity and systemic racism.

“Poverty was not tangential to the pandemic, but deeply embedded in its geography,” researchers wrote. “Poverty and widespread inequality increases vulnerability to crises. While vaccines will prevent the worst impacts of COVID-19, they will not inoculate against poverty.”

The report, produced by the The Poor People’s Campaign in collaboration with the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, found that death rates in the lowest income group were double the death rates of those in the highest income group.

In addition, counties with disproportionately more Black residents had a significantly higher COVID-19 death rate than counties that did not.

The pandemic exacerbated preexisting social and economic disparities that existed prior to the emergence of COVID-19, the report found.

“Crises do not unfold independently of the conditions from which they arise,” researchers said. “The pandemic exacerbated preexisting social and economic disparities that have long festered in the US, including a deeply divided society, widespread poverty, a weak social safety net, inadequate living conditions, and a lack of trust in science that predated COVID-19.”

Prior to the onset of the pandemic, there were 140 million low-income people living in the U.S., accounting for approximately 40% of the population — including more than half of children in the country.

“Widespread and unequal distribution of wealth, income and resources prior to the pandemic created the conditions for many of the negative outcomes associated with the virus,” researchers wrote.

Death rates have varied throughout the pandemic, in each of the various surges. Researchers found that the two deadliest waves were the winter surge of 2020-2021, accounting for nearly 40% of all deaths to date, and the recent omicron surge, accounting for nearly 20% of deaths so far, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

With the exception of the first COVID-19 surge, U.S. counties with the “lowest median income had death rates at least two times higher than that of the counties with the highest income.”

Preexisting disparities in health care access, wealth distribution and housing insecurity created “disastrous effects” for some Americans, as the virus exacerbated gaps in access that “caused increased harm to populations based on their class, race, gender, geography, and ability.”

Findings also suggested that pandemic job losses were concentrated among low-income workers, and that Americans living in poverty were the most likely to miss work due to COVID-19. Furthermore, Black and Hispanic women were most likely to lose full-time jobs.

Researchers stressed that adequate living wages, shared economic prosperity and inclusive welfare programs can address some of the concerns discussed in the report. In addition, ensuring universal and affordable health care, housing, water, access to utilities, quality public education and guaranteeing a robust democracy “will establish a more equitable foundation upon which we can build back better from the pandemic.”

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