Effectiveness of Paxlovid - a review

Paxlovid is an oral treatment for mild to moderate COVID-19 cases with a high risk for severe course of the disease. For this review, we have performed a comprehensive literature review. We present a summary of currently available data on Paxlovid’s ability to reduce the risk of progressing to a severe disease state. Our findings can be concluded as follows: data from the time when the Delta-variant was dominant shows that Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 87.8% for unvaccinated, non-hospitalized high-risk individuals. Data from the time when the Omicron variant was dominant found decreased risk reductions, varying between 41% and 46%, combining various vaccination statuses. However, one study, which differentiated by age, found that the administration of Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospitalization by 67% for individuals aged 65 and older, but only by 27% for individuals aged 40-64. From the available data, one can conclude that Paxlovid cannot substitute vaccination, but its low manufacturing cost as well as its easy administration make it a valuable tool in fighting COVID-19, especially for countries with a low vaccination rate. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The work on the paper was funded by the Ministry of research and education (BMBF) Germany (grants number 031L0300D, 031L0302A), TU Berlin, and under Germany's Excellence Strategy-MATH+ : The Berlin Mathematics Research Center (EXC-2046/1) project no. 390685689 (subproject EF4-13). ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes No data was produced in the present work.