Do you have a COVID-19 Preparedness Plan?

(BPT) - If you’re concerned about getting COVID-19, you have good cause.

According to the latest COVID-19 Data Tracker from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. alone has already logged over 13.6 million cases and the overall weekly hospitalization rate is at its highest since the pandemic began.

While it’s critical to stay informed about the spread of the virus and know how to protect yourself and others, many people may not realize how important it is to be prepared with an action plan should an outbreak occur in your community or household.

The better informed you are, the more empowered you can feel about coping with the pandemic.

COVID-19 Preparedness Tips from a Professional Patient Advocate Who was Hospitalized

Professionally, Michelle Vogel works in patient advocacy and provider relations, helping other patients navigate the healthcare system. That experience has taught her that sometimes, patients must be proactive and push to find their best options. Preparing as much as possible in advance is paramount.

Have a testing plan. Know the symptoms and if you have been exposed or experience symptoms, know where to get tested in your area, and know how you’ll isolate or self-quarantine if necessary. Relevant information is listed and regularly updated on the CDC website.

Get to know the hospitals in your area. Look up local and regional hospitals in your area and make a plan for where you would seek treatment if you needed to be hospitalized. If you want access to investigational treatment candidates, websites like www.StopStorm.com can help you find research hospitals in your region as they may be enrolling people in clinical trials.

Ask about treatments and clinical trials. Everyone reacts differently to the coronavirus. As such, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to treatment. If you’re hospitalized with COVID-19, ask about treatment options and if you may be eligible to enroll in a clinical trial. Since eligibility criteria can change, it’s important to keep asking your hospital and doctor about clinical trials daily.

Throughout this crisis, the biotech and pharmaceutical industries have worked tirelessly to develop vaccines and therapeutics to help overcome this pandemic. However, with over 4,000 COVID-19 clinical trials listed on www.clinicaltrials.gov and the healthcare system almost overwhelmed, the burden to get access to clinical trials is now often falling to the patient or their families who may need to proactively plan, ask and engage.

Clinical trials are crucial in the development of innovative medicines and participating in a clinical trial helps advance potential treatment options for people in need.

“Typically, hospital researchers will discuss clinical trial options proactively with patients who may be eligible to enroll,” said Vogel. “I think that there is so much research going on right now, patients and their families have to be more vocal and engaged in asking about potential clinical trials than ever before.”

What Happens When the Professional Patient Advocate Becomes the Patient?

The expression, ‘when it rains, it pours,’ doesn’t even begin to capture how torrential Michelle Vogel’s experience was with COVID-19. It was the midst of Florida’s hurricane season, the virus was surging in the state and her mom was just diagnosed with COVID-19 in Boynton Beach, Florida, days prior.

While Michelle, a 53-year-old Jacksonville, Florida, resident, waited to get her COVID-19 test, delayed due to heavy storms, her symptoms were getting worse. After her test came back as positive, she went to the research hospital in her area and was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and was treated with convalescent plasma, remdesivir and steroids. Her condition deteriorated and she developed a hyper-response of the immune system that causes harmful inflammation, known as cytokine storm. The condition affects almost 90% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and is a leading cause of COVID-19 progression, use of a ventilator and death.

Vogel asked about clinical trials and learned that the Mayo Clinic was one of the sites enrolling patients in a Phase 3 study evaluating lenzilumab, an investigational treatment candidate designed to combat cytokine storm. She pushed to be enrolled in the clinical trial.

The Unsung Heroes

“Patients participating in clinical trials are too often the unsung heroes in the development of innovative treatments and the pandemic has heightened the importance of patient advocacy in the clinical trial process,” said Cameron Durrant, MD, MBA, chief executive officer of Humanigen, the biopharmaceutical company developing lenzilumab as a potential COVID-19 treatment. “The global biopharmaceutical industry has made tremendous strides to develop viable COVID-19 vaccines, but we need treatment options for all patients while we wait for widespread safe and effective vaccine use and availability.”

For Michelle Vogel, her condition improved rapidly after participating in the clinical trial. She had read that lenzilumab could help normalize her C-reactive protein and that is what she experienced. Just days later, she was weaned off supplemental oxygen and discharged from the hospital.

“If I hadn’t pushed to see what other options were out there, I don’t know if the lenzilumab trial would’ve been offered,” she said. “Because of my professional experience as a patient advocate, I knew to keep on pushing to see what my options were. But there are many patients who don’t even know that they can ask what their treatment options are.”

Sadly, however, Michelle’s mom passed away from COVID-19 while Michelle was in her own COVID-19 battle. “I tried hard to advocate for the best treatments for my mom but there were no clinical trial options at her hospital and it’s difficult to even think about whether she would have survived if she had access to a clinical trial.”

To learn more and to find a lenzilumab clinical trial site near you, visit www.StopStorm.com.