About a year into the pandemic the new coronavirus is clearly worse than seasonal flu, and a study released Friday explained just as bad, showing a nearly three-fold higher mortality rate. among COVID-19 patients.
The study, using French national data and published in the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, highlighted the severity of the disease for people with Covid-19.
Researchers compared data for 89,530 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in March and April this year with 45,819 hospitalized patients with seasonal flu between December 2018 and the end of February 2019.
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Some 16.9 per cent of COVID-19 patients died during the study period – which was at the time of the first devastating wave across Europe when doctors had few treatments to reverse for critically ill people .
This compares with a 5.8% mortality rate among those with flu.
Catherine Quantin, a professor at Dijon University Hospital and the French national institute of health INSERM who co-led the study, said the difference in mortality rates was “particularly remarkable” because it was the flu season. 2018-2019 the deadliest that France has seen in five years.
The authors note that the difference in the number of hospitals – which saw twice as many people admitted for COVID-19 flu – could be due to explained in part by the existing immunity to influenza, either due to infection or previous vaccination.
The researchers found that more patients with COVID-19 needed intensive care – 16.3% compared to 10.8% for flu – while the average time in ICU was nearly twice as long (15 days compared to 8 days).
The study also found that there were significantly fewer children under 18 hospitalized with COVID-19 than with influenza – 1.4% compared to 19.5%.