Pharmacist responsiveness and readiness for oral antivirals for COVID-19: A rebuttal to the AMA statement regarding the Biden administration’s test-to-treat plan

On March 4, 2022, the American Medical Association (AMA) released a statement in response to the Biden administration’s plan of a test-to-treat plan allowing pharmacists to serve as locations to test and provide prescriptions for oral antiviral therapies for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) after a positive test result. The statement by AMA contradicts and underrepresents the impact pharmacists have on clinical practice. Pharmacists have been a crucial part of many efforts including mass vaccination efforts and furnishing of prescriptions for other complex disease states (e.g., pre-exposure prophylaxis and postexposure prophylaxis therapy). Furthermore, health systems have proven that novel approaches to mitigate operational and clinical barriers to COVID-19 therapies may offset the increased demand needed by communities. Herein, this commentary will discuss a viewpoint and counterpoint to the statement put out by AMA, with a focus on pharmacists.