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Omicron Hospitalization Risk Is Far Below Delta’s in Two Studies

  • Scottish and South African data show lower hospitalizations
  • Omicron’s infectiousness may outweigh strain’s lower severity
Bloomberg business news
WATCH: A new study suggests the Omicron variant may be less likely to send patients to the hospital than the delta variant. Rachel Chang reports.Source: Bloomberg
Updated on

The highly-mutated omicron variant appears less likely to land patients in the hospital with Covid-19 than the delta strain, according to preliminary data from a trio of studies. 

Researchers in Scotland found omicron was associated with a two-thirds lower risk of hospitalization compared to the earlier variant, though it was 10 times more likely than delta to infect people who’d already had Covid. An Imperial College London team working with a larger data set found that people with omicron were almost half as likely to need an overnight hospital stay.