Covid -19, misinformation, and antimicrobial resistance

Well before covid-19, the world already faced an emergent threat of antimicrobial resistance, and many have sounded the alarm over further escalation during the pandemic. A study from the US, for example, showed that 71% of covid-19 patients received antibiotics while only 4% had true bacterial coinfection. This overuse of antibiotics may have contributed to the observed 10% increase in resistance against several classes of antibiotics (compared with 2019) at the same institution.