Antibiotic prescribing patterns in patients hospitalized with COVID-19: lessons from the first wave.

Background: A high proportion of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 receive antibiotics despite evidence to show low levels of true bacterial coinfection.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study examining antibiotic prescribing patterns of 300 patients sequentially diagnosed with COVID-19. Patients were grouped into 3 sub-cohorts: Group 1 received no antibiotics, Group 2 received antibiotics for microbiologically confirmed infections and Group 3 was empirically treated with antibiotics for pneumonia.