Xie et al. - JAMA (2024)
Xie et al. - JAMA (2024)
TL;Dr.: In a research letter published in the JAMA, Xie, Choi and Al-Aly compared mortality risks in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 vs influenza during the fall-winter of 2023-2024. The study used US Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health record data from 8,625 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and 2,647 patients hospitalized for influenza. The researchers found that patients hospitalized for COVID-19 exhibited a higher adjusted death rate compared to patients hospitalized for influenza: 5.70% vs 4.24% (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.35). This indicates that patients hospitalized for COVID-19 continue to face a greater risk of death compared to those hospitalized for seasonal influenza, even though the risk of death due to COVID-19 has declined since the first year of the pandemic.