COVID-19 vs Flu: Which is More Dangerous?

One year has passed since the discovery of COVID-19. On December 15, 2020, the results of a comparative study of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza with fully conditioned uniform data were published in the British Medical Journal. This paper highlights the difference in the risk or symptoms of death from COVID-19 and the flu.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that COVID-19 infection is not as contagious as influenza, and President Trump also said that COVID-19 has a lower fatality rate than the flu. .

Regarding this comparison of COVID-19 and flu, a research team from the University of Washington Center for Clinical Epidemiology at the University of St. Louis has compared COVID-19 and the flu in various forms, including government agencies, public health authorities, and even the general public, but these are based on data and statistics obtained by different methods and are the same. It is pointed out in the paper that conditional comparison has not been made so far.

The research team conducted a study using the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health database, the largest integrated health care delivery system in the United States. The system provides health care as part of the veterans’ welfare benefits, and the database contains records of health care services provided to more than 9 million veterans through 1,255 health care facilities in all.

As a result of extracting cases from this database, 54,281 positive flu tests were recorded between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2019, and patients diagnosed positive in COVID-19 tests between February 1 and June 17, 2020. 9,125 records were found. In addition, as a result of narrowing the data to meet conditions such as before and after diagnosis, the number of flu patients was 12,676, leaving 3,641 COVID-19 patients data. In addition, the average age of influenza patients was 70.25 years, the average age of COVID-19 patients was 69.03 years, and the overall average age was 69.98 years.

When the researchers compared the two records, they found that COVID-19 was nearly five times more likely to die than the flu. Specifically, among 12,676 influenza patients, 674, or 5.3%, died, while among 3,641 COVID-19 patients, 676, or 18.5%, died.

Comparing the number of deaths per 100 people, the mortality rate of influenza patients is almost stationary around the 20th day of hospitalization, whereas the mortality rate of COVID-19 patients continues to rise sharply from the first day of hospitalization to the 60th day.

In addition, when looking at patients using ventilators and those receiving intensive care, a comparison of the use of medical resources by COVID-19 patients and flu patients showed that COVID-19 patients were four times more likely to require a ventilator than flu patients and were in the intensive care unit. are 2.5 times more likely to require treatment. In addition, the hospitalization period for COVID-19 patients was, on average, three days longer than those for flu patients.

The study also found that COVID-19 patients were 9 per 100 more likely to develop diabetes during hospitalization than flu patients. There are cases where even people who did not have diabetes before getting COVID-19 suddenly had a sudden spike in blood sugar and needed a large amount of insulin. However, it is not known whether diabetes is temporary or long-term, as it has only been a year.

In addition, in a study published in June 2020, there was a study that even healthy people could become diabetic if they contract COVID-19. The study also revealed the reasoning that the destruction of insulin-secreting cells by viral infection appears to cause diabetes.

Corona 19 patients are more likely than flu patients not only for diabetes, but also for various complications such as kidney and liver disorders, hypotension suspected of visceral disorders, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, stroke, acute myocarditis, arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death.

Based on these research results, the research team calls Corona 19 a respiratory virus infection, but according to clinical results, there is a risk of damage to various parts such as the brain, liver, heart, kidneys and blood vessels, and this is a devastating result. Related information can be found here.