The Mystery of Why COVID-19 Rebounds in Some Patients Who Take Paxlovid

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From Positive to Negative to Positive Again—The Mystery of Why COVID-19 Rebounds in Some Patients Who Take Paxlovid

David Ho, MD, managed to avoid contracting COVID-19 for more than 2 years.

But SARS-CoV-2 finally got the best of the pioneering HIV researcher on an April trip to Paris for, of all things, a 2-day COVID-19 conference.

The irony is not lost on Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University. He figures he most likely became infected at a preconference dinner for a small group of attendees. They dined inside a restaurant, and the waitstaff weren’t wearing masks, Ho explained in an interview.


Shortly after he returned home, Ho started coughing. His throat hurt, his head ached, his nose was runny, and he felt even more fatigued than a healthy person should after a quick trip across the pond and back. He immediately assumed that this was no cold, and a rapid antigen test followed by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test confirmed that he indeed had COVID-19.

About 12 hours after his symptoms arose, Ho swallowed his first dose of Pfizer’s antiviral nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, better known as Paxlovid. By day 4, his symptoms had resolved and he tested negative for COVID-19. After testing negative again on day 5, he ended his isolation from his family but continued to test daily.

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