JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

As the Coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the globe, the world continues in its search for a medication to cure, or attenuate, the symptoms of COVID-19 infection. It would be desirable, and fortuitous, to identify such a medication already in use for another condition, and whose side effect profile and safety data are already known and approved.

Objective:

To design an ‘app’ with the purpose of tracking the incidence of typical COVID-19 symptoms in the population under study, and to detect possible associations between symptom severity and pre-existing medical conditions or medication therapies.

Methods:

Between early April and late July 2020, 3990 people in Lower Saxony, Germany, participated in an online symptom tracker application, ‘covid-nein-danke.de’. The questionnaire contained items on typical COVID-19 symptoms, age range, gender, work in patient-facing healthcare, community life, postal code, previous illnesses, permanent medication, vaccination status, and results of PCR and antibody test for COVID-19, and COVID-19 treatment if performed.

Results:

Analysis of the results have demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between a lower incidence of typical COVID-19 symptoms and concomitant statin therapy and, to a lesser extent, with antihypertensive therapy. Defining COVID-19 infection by restrictive symptom criteria (4 out of 7 symptoms) the association was found solely for statins with a statistically significance (OR 0,28 (0,1 - 0,78)). These findings are in line with recent studies.

Conclusions:

People taking statin medication may not present with the typical COVID-19 symptoms. This relates especially to the symptoms of “sore throat”, “headache”, and “dry cough”. The results of this study should be incorporated into all ‘symptoms-based ‘surveillance and decision-making protocols in respect to COVID-19. Furthermore, we conclude with the assumption that people taking statin therapy may be more likely to have an asymptomatic COVID-19 infection, in which case they may be at an increased risk of transmitting it unknowingly. Whether statin therapy has a beneficial effect in combating COVID-19 infection should be investigated by further study. Our ongoing digital surveillance study will continue to investigate the possible preventative role of statin therapy in symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Currently the results should not be misinterpreted as a recommendation to take statins for prevention or treatment of COVID-19. Clinical Trial: German Clinical Trial Register No. DRKS000022185, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform U1111-1252-6946.