evidence: Two new studies suggest that COVID-19 Omicron variant infection is deadlier than influenza, with one finding that US veterans hospitalized with Omicron in fall and winter 2022-23 died at a 61% higher rate than hospitalized flu patients, and the other revealing that Israeli adults hospitalized with flu were 55% less likely to die within 30 days than those admitted for Omicron in the 2021-22 flu season. [...] The authors noted that two or three times more people in the United States were hospitalized for COVID-19 than flu during the study period. "However, the difference in mortality rates between COVID-19 and influenza appears to have decreased since early in the pandemic; death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study." [...] COVID-19 patients needed supplemental oxygen, invasive mechanical ventilation, and vasopressors to raise blood pressure more often than flu patients. A multivariate analysis showed that the 30-day death rate was 9% among flu patients, compared with 26% among COVID-19 patients, a relative difference of 55% (HR, 0.45).