104 Chapter 4 primary care has already suggested that point-of-care testing for patients with RTIs may decrease antibiotic prescriptions (22). In conclusion, this study confirmed that a high proportion of patients with influenza in the past four seasons were treated with antibiotics by their GP. In contrast, the rate of antibiotic prescription in primary care during the first two waves of the SARSCoV-2 pandemic in The Netherlands was lower than the influenza seasons studied. Patients with COVID-19 who were prescribed an antibiotic were more likely to have risk factors and more often experienced an adverse course of COVID-19, as is shown by an increased number of hospital or ICU admissions among those prescribed antibiotics. These observations suggest a relatively targeted antibiotic prescription policy during COVID-19, but also clearly suggest that inappropriate antibiotic prescription would potentially decrease further with diagnostic testing for other specific viral infections.
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