Paxlovid Significantly Reduces COVID-19 Hospitalizations and Deaths

New Epic Research study finds that patients who receive Paxlovid are two times less likely to be hospitalized and four times less likely to die of COVID-19-related causes

VERONA, Wis., Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study from Epic Research shows that the anti-viral treatment Paxlovid can meaningfully reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths— even among patients under the age of 65. The rapid treatment of high-risk patients with Paxlovid, as well as receipt of prior COVID-19 vaccination, can have a critical lifesaving benefit in preventing the potentially deadly effects of COVID-19.

Epic Research conducted an analysis of 567,560 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who could have received the treatment between March 1 and August 1, 2022. The study found that:

• Patients who received Paxlovid were two times less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 and four times less likely to die of COVID-19 than those who didn't.
• Fully vaccinated patients over the age of 50 who received the treatment were about three times less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than those who didn't.
• Patients between the ages 40 and 49 who received the treatment are about two times less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than those who didn't.

"Our study shows that Paxlovid helps to reduce COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations significantly," said Jackie Gerhart, vice president of clinical informatics at Epic and an author on the study. "We're sharing these findings to provide clinicians, policymakers, and patients timely access to actionable real-world data."

This study presents an analysis of data from Epic's Cosmos database, which allows researchers to study more than 163 million patient records that account for more than 5.7 billion healthcare encounters nationwide. Researchers and clinicians can leverage the depth, breadth, and representativeness of this data in a platform optimized for real-time queries, reducing the time it takes to answer many clinical questions.

Going forward, Epic Research and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are examining how risk factors like underlying conditions, race, and ethnicity might impact these findings. This ongoing research is in addition to a previous Epic Research-CDC collaboration, published in the Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report, in which Cosmos data was used to assess COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in patients who have already had COVID-19.

Cosmos combines billions of clinical data points to form a high quality and integrated set of data that can be used to improve the health and lives of people everywhere. With over 5.7 billion patient encounters from 163 million unique patient records, Cosmos is the largest clinical data set from electronic health records in the world. It provides a population from all 50 states that is highly representative across age, gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, including patients seen in federally qualified health centers and covered by federally funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

To learn more about Cosmos, visit https://cosmos.epic.com. To learn about participating organizations, visit https://www.epic.com/cosmos/participants. Epic Research studies are available to the public at https://epicresearch.org, where you can also subscribe to receive research updates and submit research ideas.

SOURCE Epic