The Omicron variant is less than half as likely to cause hospitalization and 91% less likely to cause death.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms that the Omicron variant is significantly less severe than other COVID-19 strains.

The agency revealed data on Wednesday that showed the risk of hospitalization from the virus was halved for people with Omicron compared with the Delta variant. Once some people were in the hospital, they were 75% less likely to need intensive care.

Omicron also rarely causes death, according to the report, with a 91% lower fatality rate than Delta.

While health officials and experts have long known that the Omicron variant is not as deadly as its predecessor, the data clearly show how much lower the death rate actually is.

During Wednesday’s press conference where the data was revealed, Walensky also noted that the recent 10% increase in Covid deaths in the US was actually due to the Delta variant, not the common Omicron strain.

Data from the CDC show that people infected by the Omicron variant (green) are 50% more likely to be hospitalized within 14 days of first feeling symptoms than those infected with Delta (color). Violet)

People hospitalized with Omicron (green) were 75% less likely to require intensive care than those hospitalized with the Delta variant (purple)

The CDC team found that people infected with the Omicro variant (green) rarely died and had a 91% reduced risk when compared with those infected with the Delta strain (purple).

The CDC collected data from 70,000 Southern Californians for the study, 50,000 of whom were infected with the Omicron variant. Others have the Delta strain.

The highly infectious variant quickly broke out in the US after it was discovered by South African health officials in late November.

Currently, the US is recording an average of 750,515 new cases per day, the second-highest total daily new cases recorded during the pandemic – just behind Tuesday’s total – with 1,716 deaths reported attributed to the virus every day.

While this variant has caused the number of cases to triple in record numbers in recent weeks, deaths have not moved at the same rate.

The death toll has increased by 10 percent in the past two weeks, according to CDC officials, and the daily average of 1,716 is still far below the pandemic record of more than 3,000 during the Delta wave this summer. summer.

However, Delta’s case rate peaked at around 200,000, showing just how much more deadly the variant was that it killed twice as many people at altitudes as Omicron currently does.

The most recent CDC data from Tuesday estimated that 98% of active Covid cases in the United States are of the Omicron variant, a staggering number for an unknown strain about two months ago.

The Delta variant, which dominated the second half of 2021, is now only about 2% of the eliminated cases.

The Omicron variant (purple) accounts for 98% of active Covid cases in the US, surpassing the Delta (orange) variant that dominates the majority in the second half of 2021

Although cases are less severe, Omicron’s rate of infection makes it the biggest challenge for health and government officials.

The spread of this variant crippled the travel industry last month, prompting the CDC to reduce the minimum recommended isolation period for a positive case to five days, from ten.

Hospitals have also been affected, with the Department of Health and Human Services reporting that 23% of hospitals are facing severe staff shortages at the moment, with infections among staff. members play an important role.

Still, the data from the CDC is promising and likely the most hopeful the US has received in months related to the pandemic.

If the variant spreads quickly and is unlikely to be lethal, it can quickly burn through the population and begin to retreat.

Experts and health officials are hopeful that the recent surge caused by this variant is showing signs of drying up, as it could run out of people to infect in the coming weeks.

If the US follows the safe path of the UK, as is often the case during pandemic times, cases could begin to decline rapidly within weeks.

In the UK, cases have fallen by more than 40% in the past week and the number of cases has fallen for six consecutive days – when just two weeks ago the whole country was in crisis.

London, which was once the world’s worst-affected city by the new virus, has seen a significant remission of cases and hospital admissions starting to slow.

Source: | This article originally belonged to Dailymail.co.uk