• Alaa Atamna, Evgeny Berkov, Genady Drozdinsky, Tzippy Shochat, Haim Ben Zvi, Noa Eliakim-Raz, Jihad Bishara, and Avishay Elis.
• Infectious Disease Unit, Rabin Medical Center (Beilinson Campus), Petah Tikva, Israel, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
• Isr Med Assoc J. 2023 Sep 1; 25 (9): 585589585-589.

BackgroundInfluenza and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are respiratory diseases with similar modes of transmission. In December 2021, influenza re-emerged after it had been undetected since March 2020 and the Omicron variant replaced the Delta variant. Data directly comparing the two diseases are scarce.ObjectivesTo compare the outcomes of patients with both the Omicron variant and influenza during 2021-2022.MethodsWe performed a retrospective study conducted in Beilinson hospital, Israel, from December 2021 to January 2022. We included all hospitalized patients with either laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 or influenza. The primary outcome was 30-day mortality.ResultsWe identified 167 patients diagnosed with Omicron and 221 diagnosed with Influenza A. The median age was 71 years for Omicron and 65 years for influenza. Patients with Omicron had a significantly higher Charlson Comorbidity Index score (4 vs. 3, P < 0.001). Patients with Omicron developed more respiratory failure that needed mechanical ventilation (7% vs. 2%, P = 0.05) and vasopressors (14% vs. 2%, P < 0.001) than patients with influenza. In a multivariate model, 30-day mortality was lower in patients diagnosed with influenza than in patients diagnosed with Omicron (19/221 [9%] vs. 44/167 [26%], hazard ratio 0.45, 95% confidence interval 0.25-0.81).ConclusionsPatients diagnosed with Omicron had higher mortality than patients diagnosed with seasonal influenza. This finding could be due to differences in co-morbidities, the virus pathogenicity, and host responses to infection.

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