A study enrolled 27 patients with COVID-19 (6 severe cases and 21 mild cases) and 75 patients with the flu to match characteristics of COVID-19. The study excluded people with history of tumors, severe kidney and liver diseases, blood diseases, pregnant people, those with known infections, and those who had medication before their visit to the ICU. The disease state for COVID was divided into 4 stages: initial, progression, peak and recovery. Over the course of this approximately 2 month study a number of things were discovered. In comparison to patients with influenza those with COVID generally had a lower white blood cell count and granulocytes. In addition, CRP, ESR, and NLR were all positively associated with computed tomography (CT) severity scores in the lung (the higher the score the worse the condition). CRP and ESR were also elevated in the earlier stages of COVID before identification of any changes by CT scores. Ultimately it was determined that CRP changes were more sensitive to COVID-19 and were associated with disease development all while being a good predictor of severity in the early stages of COVID infection.