Association between SARS‐CoV‐2 viral kinetics and clinical score evolution in hospitalized patients

Abstract The role of antiviral treatment in coronavirus disease 2019 hospitalized patients is controversial. To address this question, we analyzed simultaneously nasopharyngeal viral load and the National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS‐2) using an effect compartment model to relate viral dynamics and the evolution of clinical severity. The model is applied to 664 hospitalized patients included in the DisCoVeRy trial (NCT04315948; EudraCT 2020‐000936‐23) randomly assigned to either standard of care (SoC) or SoC + remdesivir. Then we use the model to simulate the impact of antiviral treatments on the time to clinical improvement, defined by a NEWS‐2 score lower than 3 (in patients with NEWS‐2