Dr. Bogoch, I wanted to ask you about medical therapeutics.
In the last two years we have been on a number of committee meetings together, and you probably heard my questions about this. In Ontario, we now have two forms of therapeutics that I think are fairly readily available: Paxlovid, an antiviral, and also sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody. Both have been shown to be quite effective in preventing hospitalization and serious illness when given early to high-risk people.
Off the top of my head, my numbers are that sotrovimab results in an 80% reduction in hospitalization, and with Paxlovid, I think the original studies were that it was 90%. Now those are probably out of date. It would seem to me that this ought to be a big part of trying to ensure that future waves don't end up shutting us down. When people who are at high risk get sick, they should be able to access these treatments, and thereby we can prevent a lot of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths.
Let me start off by asking this: Are you using those forms of therapeutics very much, and are doctors in Canada using them as much as they ought to be?