![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Clarence-COVID-monoclonal-1-e1608737381249-225x300.jpg\")
The monoclonal therapies, which are laboratory-designed proteins, work by mimicking the immune system to help fight off the COVID-19 virus by blocking its attachment and entry into cells.<\/p>\n
While living with heart failure, he fought a successful battle against the COVID-19 virus with UConn Health\u2019s help.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt first felt like I was catching the flu,\u201d shared McDowell who first began experiencing shortness of breath and headache symptoms on Dec. 7, along with the tell-tale COVID-19 symptom of losing his ability to taste and smell.<\/p>\n
The very next day at his UConn Health doctor\u2019s appointment he tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got scared,\u201d shared McDowell who reports being overweight and having congestive heart failure making him high-risk for COVID-19 complications.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I was going to die,\u201d says McDowell since his symptoms started to progress including to feverish chills that would come and go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to the ED with severe shortness of breath, and I started to panic,\u201d says McDowell.<\/p>\n
But within hours help was on the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin 6 hours I got a phone call from UConn Health offering me new monoclonal antibody therapy,\u201d says McDowell.<\/p>\n
He says his symptoms of shortness of breath and chills continued initially post-infusion, but he could tell the severity of his symptoms was starting to go away.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo days after the monoclonal antibody therapy I was back to normal!\u201d stressed McDowell.<\/p>\n
His message to other high-risk COVID-19 positive patients like him?<\/p>\n
\u201cI say get it!\u201d says McDowell.\u00a0 \u201cA few days later I felt better.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he additionally shared his personal recommendation about the new COVID-19 vaccine expected to be soon on the way for high-risk patients.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/clarence-COVID-monoclonal-2-e1608737570831-225x300.jpg\")
\u201cOh yes. I say get it too!\u201d says McDowell who looks forward to the COVID-19 vaccine\u2019s protective effects against the virus and severe disease progression.<\/p>\n
Thanks to UConn Health and its new innovative COVID-19 care offerings McDowell is truly looking forward to the holidays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sure am, a holiday with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The week of Dec. 7 marked a major milestone for UConn John Dempsey Hospital with its first COVID-19 outpatients successfully receiving monoclonal antibody therapies, recently authorized by the FDA for emergency use.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really nice to be able to offer high-risk COVID-19 patients like Mr. McDowell the latest innovative care options at UConn Health,\u201d said Dr. Kevin Dieckhaus, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases. \u201cOur UConn Health community really worked together to open the new monoclonal antibody infusion unit very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
His team at UConn Health is now offering qualifying non-hospitalized COVID-19 outpatients either bamlanivimab or a combination of casirivimab and imdevimab. Currently, only patients at increased mortality risk are being considered for monoclonal therapy infusion at UConn Health.<\/p>\n
The outpatient monoclonal antibody infusions are taking place at the newly established Therapeutic Infusion Center on the hospital\u2019s fourth floor. Each qualifying outpatient receives the one hour infusion intravenously and is observed for a minimum of one hour post-infusion.<\/p>\n
For more information about the new monoclonal antibodies, the FDA has provided these fact sheets about bamlanivimab for\u00a0<\/em>health care providers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>patients and caregivers<\/em><\/a>, and for casirivimab and imdevimab for\u00a0<\/em>providers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>patients and caregivers.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clarence McDowell, 43, of New Hartford, is extra merry this holiday season thanks to the new COVID-19 monoclonal therapy he received at UConn Health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":167421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-167419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:58:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167424,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167419\/revisions\/167424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/167421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167419"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=167419"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=167419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}