It all started last week, after President Donald Trump used a national press conference to tout an anti-malaria drug as a potential treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. “I sure as hell think we ought to give it a try,” the president said.

In a tweet later that day, the president said the drug, taken together with the common antibiotic azithromycin, could be “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”

The drug is called hydroxychloroquine, also known by its brand name Plaquenil. It’s now commonly taken by people with chronic autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. In a 40-patient French study, more than half of the COVID patients given hydroxychloroquine had clearer airways in three to six days, but experts warn that more research is needed before the drug can be considered an effective treatment.

Still, the study and the president’s promotion have created a frenzy of national demand for the drug. In Ohio, so many doctors were prescribing the drug to their friends and family that it was depleting supply, leading the pharmacy board to ban prescriptions for COVID-19 barring an actual diagnosis with the disease. Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Nevada, and Idaho have taken similar steps.

Now, patients across the country—including in the D.C. area—are fearful they won’t be able to access a treatment they need.

David Harris, a 51-year-old Cleveland Park resident, has systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common type of lupus, and the most serious. A person’s overactive immune system attacks healthy tissue, causing inflammation and organ damage.

“I’ve been on it continuously for ten years. I take it to prevent organ damage, joint pain, and joint issues,” Harris tells DCist. “My doctor was pretty firm that I can’t be off of it. I’m in as good of shape as I am right now with my lupus because of what this medication does to help control it.”

Right after Trump’s press conference last week, Harris says he realized he only had a ten-day supply of his medication left, and he immediately became scared. He called his Walgreens pharmacy in Cleveland Park, where he usually refills the prescription, and staff told him they were trying to stock the medication without any luck.

“They were saying the indication they were getting [from suppliers] as they made calls was basically, ‘good luck. It’s going to be some time,'” Harris says. “That scared them, and it really scared me.”

Harris says he spoke to his doctor, who told him he was better off taking matters into his own hands. So Harris spent hours researching and eventually bought more medicine from overseas, he says, knowing that he could not be without it for even a short amount of time.

After about five days, Walgreens was able to find some hydroxychloroquine and stock it for him, he says. But the possibility of finding himself without it was overwhelming.

“For me it was a very tense five days or so, and four or five hours of panicky internet searching,” he says. “It’s upsetting to think that you can’t get a drug you need to stay fundamentally healthy.”

Harris’s fears are not unfounded. In California, patients have reported being completely unable to fill their hydroxychloroquine prescriptions. One woman reported receiving a letter from Kaiser Permanente, her health care provider, informing her that the network was “conserving the current supply for those who are critically ill with COVID-19,” and thanking her for “the sacrifice you will be making for the sake of those who are critically ill.”

“I never agreed to sacrifice my health and possibly my life and cannot believe that I am being forced to do so,” the woman told BuzzFeed News.

Dr. Bruce Wollman, the associate medical director of pharmacy for Kaiser Permanente in the mid-Atlantic, said he could not speak to what is happening in California, but that “here in the mid-Atlantic, we have never held back the medication from the patients who need it. We are currently prescribing or refilling it.”

However, Kaiser is only refilling hydroxychloroquine prescriptions for one 14-day supply at a time, Wollman says. Normally they would be prescribing enough for at least one month. Additionally, Kaiser sent out a letter to patients with conditions that have alternative treatments, he said, encouraging them to speak with their doctors about switching to another medication amid the national shortage.

“In terms of this particular pill, with this spotlight on it, it has created a very big buzz with a lot of people having great interest in getting a hold of the pill, for better or worse,” Wollman says. “We want to make sure there’s enough for everybody who needs it.”

For everyone with SLE, and in appropriate COVID cases, Kaiser will fill hydroxychloroquine prescriptions, Wollman says.

Serena Golden, an editor in the Opinion section at the Washington Post, tells DCist that she has not bothered to try to get her prescription for hydroxychloroquine refilled since this erupted last week, as she’d seen wide coverage about people having difficulty obtaining the medicine. In fact, after hearing last week that a person with lupus she knew in California couldn’t access their prescription, Golden mailed then her remaining pills.

Golden has a condition called morphea profunda, which creates patches on her skin that can grow and even come to impair joint movement. It is not a life threatening condition, but Golden takes hydroxychloroquine to keep the patches under control.

“I know that for me, if I’m off it for a few months, it’s not going to kill me,” she says. “It just seemed like sending it to someone who had a much more serious illness was the right thing to do.”

However, Golden stresses, she would be on it if she could; over the last week, she’s already noticed that the patches on her skin are growing.

Megan Crockett, who lives in Falls Church, Virginia, says this issue has been causing her great stress over the last week. Crockett has multiple sclerosis and several other autoimmune conditions, and she has been on hydroxychloroquine for 13 years, she tells DCist. She credits the medication with slowing the progression of her MS.

As soon as she heard whispers that people were talking about an “anti-malaria drug” as a COVID-19 treatment, Crockett leaped into action, she says. “I knew exactly what they were talking about immediately,” she says. She called her insurance company and pressed until they approved a refill for a 90-day supply, which she got filled soon after, she said. She anticipated that a shortage was coming, and her prediction was borne out.

“I thought what can I do in 90 days if we’re still in this situation? Some people don’t even have insurance to get a 90-day supply,” she says. “I am very concerned, especially now that they’re saying this virus is going to go on and it’s going to cycle back. Am I better off than many people? Absolutely. Might there come a day where I’m not? Absolutely.”