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What does the highest-quality data say about Omicron’s infectiousness, mortality and vaccine evasiveness? Let’s dive in. | Liam Mannix | ANALYSIS Examine Omicron covid19
Unlike with other variants, where each surge in cases was followed by a rise in deaths; we’re not seeing that same strong relationship now. The Omicron surge appears much less deadly. “We’re clearly seeing much lower mortality than with previous waves,” says University of NSW infectious diseases modeller Associate Professor James Wood.
. “My guesstimate is about 20-times lower fatality rate in this wave than in the NSW Delta wave. It’s pretty obvious just from the standard reporting curves for each country that mortality is generally well down.”gives us a clearer picture of what’s really going on. Rather than looking only at hospital admissions, researchers tracked individuals from when they caught Omicron, and recorded if they ended up in hospital. The findings are encouraging: compared to Delta, people infected with Omicron had a 70 per cent lower chance of getting severely ill. UK data, using a sample of more than 1 million cases, suggests the risk of going to hospital with an Omicron infectionAustralia is at the forefront of answering these questions. A Kirby Institute team led by Miles Davenport and Deborah Cromer uploaded aHere are the key numbers by vaccine .AstraZeneca: 7.5 per centOther variants, most notably Delta, have also reduced the effectiveness of vaccines against symptomatic infection, but protection againstBut according to the Kirby analysis, that is not the case with Omicron.AstraZeneca: 36.7 per centThese numbers represent a significant drop considering vaccines previously offered close to 100 per cent protection against severe disease. The confidence intervals are very wide on these numbers, as there is less data available: for example, AstraZeneca ranges from 7 per cent to 73 per cent. The lower overall fatality rate of Omicron also messes with the data, so take it with a pinch of salt. Even so, while vaccines may offer lower protection against severe illness with Omicron, it’s important to remember that the data so far suggests the variant causes less severe disease in the first place.Personally, I had been mulling over declining a booster, as the evidence suggested it did not really offer additional protection against severe illness when coming up against Delta – and because we really should be sending more doses to the developing world. No longer. I’m booked in for my booster this week.MRNA booster, effectiveness against symptomatic infection“We should all go get a booster straight away, if we are eligible. As you can see, boosting provides increased protection against disease in general,” says Dr Cromer. “From a public health point of view, the stuff that is coming out is positive. But I’m a very cautious person. I still don’t feel like we’re out of the woods.”
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