Background Acute SARS‐COVID‐19 infection may increase readmission risk compared to other respiratory infections. We assessed the 1‐year readmission and inhospital death rates of hospitalized SARS‐COVID‐19 patients compared to patients hospitalized with other types of pneumonia. Methods We determined the 1‐year readmission and inhospital death rate of adult patients initially hospitalized with a positive SARS‐COVID‐19 result, and subsequently discharged, between March 2020 and August 2021, at a Netcare private hospital in South Africa, and compared this to all hospitalized adult pneumonia patients in the 3 years prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic (2017–2019). Results The 1‐year readmission rate in COVID‐19 patients was 6.6% (328/50,067) versus 8.5% in pneumonia patients (4699/55,439; p < 0.001), with an inhospital mortality rate of 7.7% (n = 251) and 9.7% (n = 454; p = 0.002) for COVID‐19 and pneumonia patients, respectively.