By Reuters
A study by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) suggested that those infected with Omicron were much less likely to end up in the hospital than those with the Delta strain, Reuters reported.
COVID-19 cases also appear to have peaked in South Africa’s Gauteng province, where Omicron first emerged, it said.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, compared South African Omicron data from October and November with data about Delta between April and November.
“In South Africa, this is the epidemiology: Omicron is behaving in a way that is less severe,” the NICD’s Professor Cheryl Cohen said.
“Compellingly, together, our data really suggest a positive story of a reduced severity of Omicron compared to other variants.”
It noted though that as the majority of people in South Africa have had prior COVID-19 infection, they could have a higher level of immunity.
The positive news was bolstered by research from London’s Imperial College which said the risk of needing to stay in hospital for patients with Omicron was 40 to 45 percent lower than for patients with Delta.
With the second Christmas of the pandemic days away, countries imposed new restrictions on their citizens while worrying about the damage the variant might inflict on their economies.
Plans for Christmas parties and celebrations were wiped out from London to New Delhi amid the uncertainty.
Preliminary data indicated Omicron was more resistant to vaccines developed before it emerged. However, the technical lead on COVID-19 of World Health Organization (WHO), Maria van Kerkhove, said the UN agency did not have enough data to draw firm conclusions.
“We have not seen this variant circulate long enough in populations around the world, certainly in vulnerable populations. We have been asking countries to be cautious, and to really think, especially as these holidays are coming up.”
The WHO’s European head, Hans Kluge, told Reuters in Brussels that three to four weeks was needed to determine Omicron’s severity. He said Omicron was likely to be the main coronavirus strain in Europe in a few weeks.
