A few weeks ago, my mother got COVID. Her First time. She texted me, asking if she should get Paxlovid-the antiviral pill that’s been out for a year now. I said yes.
But apparently, her doctor didn’t believe that Paxlovid helps. And my mother was worried about rebounds.
This is what I told her.
A recent meta analysis analyzed 13 studies of almost 200,000 COVID patients. There were 2 important findings.
- Rebound and other adverse events occasionally happened, but they were BOTH EQUALLY COMMON in the gorup that DIDN”T get Paxlovid!
- For the Paxlovid group there was an 88% reduction in mortality and a a 68% reduction in hospitalization rate (compared to the control)
An even larger CDC report last week found Paxlovid patients of ALL AGES to be roughly half as likely to be hospitalized.
And yet less than 1 in 3 eligible patients actually end up taking it. Because of poor communication and lack of trust. Over a hundred thousand extra deaths.
This is SHOULD NOT BE a matter of politics!
Please help get the word out.
In the last month, nearly 90% of the deaths from Covid were in people age 65+ (16% of the US population).
Their bivalent booster rate is less than 25%. Paxlovid use is low in seniors. A high % of these deaths are preventable.
Other CDC Data:
Among 1,713,120 persons aged ≥18 years with a COVID-19 diagnosis during April 1–August 31, 2022, 699,848 (40.9%) met the inclusion criteria, including 198,927 who received Paxlovid within 5 days after diagnosis and 500,921 who did not
Paxlovid receipt was associated with protection against hospitalization overall (aHR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.46–0.53) (Table 2 ), including among persons who had received ≥3 mRNA vaccine doses (0.50, 95% CI = 0.45–0.55) and 2 previous mRNA vaccine doses (0.50, 95% CI = 0.42–0.58). Paxlovid receipt was associated with lower hospitalization rates among persons aged 18–49 years (aHR = 0.59, 95% CI = 0.48–0.71), 50–64 years (0.40, 95% CI = 0.34–0.48), and ≥65 years (0.53, 95% CI = 0.48–0.58). Among persons aged 18–49 years, Paxlovid receipt was associated with lower hospitalization rates among persons who had received ≥3 mRNA vaccine doses (aHR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.53–1.06) and those with only one underlying health condition (aHR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.58–1.44), but these estimates did not reach statistical significance. Estimated protection by Paxlovid was similar by month of diagnosis
In this analysis, only 28% of eligible persons were prescribed Paxlovid.