Story at a glance
- A press release reports findings from a study of the first three weeks of omicron case data from South Africa.
- The results suggest that hospitalizations are lower than for previous versions of the coronavirus.
- Experts are waiting for a few more weeks of data before drawing conclusions.
Omicron is rapidly spreading in the U.S., with cases potentially peaking in January. Meanwhile, new case data is being collected and analyzed in countries like South Africa that had more cases of omicron early on. Not much can be said from only a few weeks of data, but researchers are wading through the data to see what signs they can find.
Results of a new study released Tuesday suggests that patients in South Africa are hospitalized at a lower rate compared to patients with earlier versions of the coronavirus, according to The New York Times. This is from the first three weeks of data. The study also found that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave 70 percent protection against hospitalization, compared to 90 to 95 percent protection for previous versions. The data also suggests that children under the age of 18 may be hospitalized at a higher rate than with previous variants, although more data will be necessary.
However, there hasn’t been a report or paper published yet from Discovery Health, the group that conducted the study, only a press release.
“Without seeing a preprint or the report on which this press release is based it is difficult to get a clear understanding of the validity of these conclusions,” Paul Hunter said, who is a professor in medicine at UEA, to the Science Media Centre in the U.K.
It’s also important to consider the high number of people in South Africa who had previous infections and so would have seroprevalence of antibodies. The vaccination rollout occurred later in the country than in other places, and vaccination rate is also lower with 42 doses administered per 100 people. The global average is 100 doses per 100 people according to the BBC.
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Experts will continue gathering data because the situation may change and more data over a longer period of time will be important to get a more accurate idea of what may be happening. They will be especially paying attention to whether omicron is leading to more children being hospitalized.
“Regarding the suggestion of higher hospitalisation rates in children for Omicron, it is essential to recognise that these are incomplete and partial data,” said Russell Viner, professor of Child and Adolescent Health at University College London, to the Science Media Centre. “For each previous variant we saw early claims that children were more affected which turned out later not to be true.”
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