Comparative Disease Burden and Treatment Response of Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 Infections: A Real-World Data Study

Abstract

Abstract While influenza has long affected humans, SARS-CoV-2 is a new human pathogen. As SARS-CoV-2 becomes endemic in humans, it is important to compare the impact of these two infections and the effectiveness of antiviral treatments. To tackle these questions, we utilized data from the National Covid Cohort Collaborative, a comprehensive and harmonized data repository of electronic health records in the USA. For the years 2021-2022, we included 346,648 eligible SARS-CoV-2-infected patients, 78,086 eligible influenza-infected patients, and 146,635 uninfected control subjects. Our analysis reveals that the impact on human health of as SARS-CoV-2 mirrors that of influenza. Analyses using national hospitalization and wastewater surveillance data supports a marked decline of morbidity of SARS-CoV-2 as it becomes endemic. Remarkably, real-world data shows that antiviral treatments effectively reduce the burden of acute and post-acute disease for SARS-CoV-2 but not for influenza, underscoring the unmet need for an effective influenza treatment.