For the reason that earliest days of the pandemic, well being officers have gauged the specter of COVID-19 by evaluating it to the flu. At first, it wasn’t even shut. Individuals hospitalized in 2020 with the then-novel respiratory illness have been 5 occasions extra prone to die of their sickness than have been sufferers who had been hospitalized with influenza throughout the previous flu seasons.Immunity from vaccines and previous coronavirus infections has helped tame COVID-19 to the purpose that when researchers in contrast the mortality charges of hospitalized COVID-19 and seasonal influenza sufferers throughout the top of the 2022-23 flu season, they discovered that the pandemic illness was solely 61% extra prone to lead to demise.Now the identical researchers have analyzed knowledge for the the autumn and winter of 2023 and 2024. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Medical Epidemiology Middle on the VA St. Louis Well being Care System, and his colleagues anticipated to search out that the 2 respiratory illnesses had lastly equalized.“There’s a story on the market that the pandemic is over, that it’s a nothingburger,” Al-Aly stated. “We got here into this considering we might do that rematch and discover it could be just like the flu any more.”The VA staff examined digital well being data of sufferers handled in Veterans Affairs hospitals in all 50 states between Oct. 1 and March 27. They zeroed in on sufferers who have been admitted as a result of that they had fevers, shortness of breath or different signs resulting from both COVID-19 or influenza. (Individuals who have been admitted for one more cause, akin to a coronary heart assault, and have been then discovered to have a coronavirus an infection weren’t included within the evaluation.)The COVID-19 sufferers have been slightly older, on common, than the flu sufferers (73.9 versus 70.2 years previous), and so they have been much less prone to be present or former people who smoke. They have been additionally extra prone to have acquired at the least three doses of COVID-19 vaccine and fewer prone to have shunned the pictures altogether.But after Al-Aly and his colleagues accounted for these variations and a number of different components, they discovered that 5.7% of the COVID-19 sufferers died of their illness, in contrast with 4.2% of the influenza sufferers. In different phrases, the chance of demise from COVID-19 was nonetheless 35% better than it was for the flu. The findings have been revealed Wednesday within the Journal of the American Medical Assn.“There may be undeniably an impression on the market that [COVID-19] is now not a serious menace to human well being,” Al-Aly stated. “I feel it’s largely pushed by opinion and an emotional itch to maneuver past the pandemic, to place all of it behind us. We wish to consider that it’s just like the flu, and we did — till we noticed the information.”Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious illnesses specialist at UC San Francisco, stated the examine outcomes are proper consistent with what he sees in his hospital.“COVID continues to make some individuals in our neighborhood very unwell and die — even in 2024,” he stated. “Though most is not going to get severely unwell from COVID, for some individuals it’s like 2020 yet again.”That’s significantly true for people who find themselves older, who haven’t acquired their most up-to-date beneficial COVID-19 booster, and who haven’t taken full benefit of antivirals akin to Paxlovid. Chin-Hong famous that solely 5% of the COVID-19 sufferers within the examine had been handled with antivirals earlier than they have been hospitalized. Even when the mortality charges for the COVID-19 and flu sufferers had been equal, COVID-19 would nonetheless be the larger well being menace as a result of it’s sending extra individuals to the hospital, Al-Aly stated.Between Oct. 1 and the top of March, 75.5 out of each 100,000 Individuals had been hospitalized with influenza, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Throughout that very same interval, the hospitalization charge for COVID-19 was 122.9 per 100,000 Individuals, the CDC says.“COVID nonetheless carries a better threat of hospitalization,” Al-Aly stated. “And amongst these hospitalized, extra will die in consequence.”But Al-Aly famous with frustration that whereas 48% of adults within the U.S. acquired a flu shot this yr, solely 21% of adults are updated with their COVID-19 vaccinations, in keeping with the CDC.Chin-Hong added that greater than 95% of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 this previous fall and winter had not acquired the most recent booster shot, in keeping with the CDC.Contemplating all of the instruments out there to forestall hospitalizations and deaths — and particularly the truth that they’re available to sufferers within the VA system — the 35% relative threat of demise from COVID-19 in contrast with the flu was “surprisingly excessive,” Chin-Hong stated. And it’s not just like the flu is a trivial well being menace, particularly for senior residents and people who find themselves immunocompromised. It routinely kills tens of hundreds of Individuals every year, CDC knowledge present. “Influenza is a consequential an infection,” Al-Aly stated. “Even when COVID turns into equal to the flu, it’s nonetheless sobering and important.”The researchers additionally in contrast the mortality charges of VA COVID-19 sufferers earlier than and after Dec. 24, when the Omicron subvariant referred to as JN.1 turned the dominant pressure in america. The distinction was not statistically important.In simply the final two weeks, JN.1 seems to have been overtaken by one in every of its descendants, a subvariant referred to as KP.2. It’s a part of a household of subvariants that’s taken on the nickname “FLiRT,” a moniker that references a number of the mutations which have cropped up on the viruses’ spike proteins. To this point, there’s no indication that KP.2 is any extra harmful than JN.1, Al-Aly stated.“Are the hospitals filling up? No,” he stated. “Are ER rooms everywhere in the nation flooded with respiratory sickness? No.” Nor are there worrying adjustments within the quantity of coronavirus detected in wastewater.“While you have a look at all these knowledge streams, we’re not seeing ominous indicators that KP.2 is one thing most of the people ought to fear about,” Al-Aly stated.It’s additionally too early to inform whether or not KP.2 — or no matter comes after it — will lastly erase the mortality hole between COVID-19 and the flu, he added.“Perhaps after we do a rematch in 2025, that would be the case,” he stated.