UTILIZATION OF ANTIVIRAL TREATMENT FOR HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS WITH MILD-TO-MODERATE COVID-19 AT HIGH RISK FOR DISEASE PROGRESSION

Clinicians frequently encounter patients in the hospital with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for disease progression. Antiviral drugs reduce the rate of progression to severe COVID-19 when given to these patients within 5-7 days of symptom onset. To look at the utilization of antiviral medications in hospitalized patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19, a detailed chart review was conducted of 500 randomly selected patients from the Charleston Area Medical Center COVID-19 Registry. We identified 124 patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who were eligible for antiviral treatment. Only 41 of the 124 patients (33.1 %) received antiviral treatment. Providers listed mild symptoms as the most common reason (74.7 %) that antiviral treatment was not started. These findings show that antiviral medications are underutilized in treating high-risk hospitalized patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 to prevent disease progression.