Average hospital stay for Omicron patients to be a game-changer? Experts share data

In less than a month, 'highly mutated' Omicron variant has spre rapidly around world, contributing nearly 90% of new cases in some countries. However, according to an article published in Spectator on Thursday, data presented to British government's Scientific visory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) committee on December 22 stated about new information which confirms that patients with Omicron variant have shorter stays in hospital.  

recent SAGE reports demonstrate average length of stay in hospital for Omicron patients, which could be a potential game-changer amid spike of COVID-19 cases. If length of hospital stay is decreased, n National Health Service's (NHS) COVID-handling capacity would increase, and danger of hospitals becoming overburdened is greatly reduced, according to Spectator.  

Findings of Report

According to report, it revealed that after December 1, average hospital stay for COVID patients has been drastically reduced as compared to cases during third wave in early to mid-2021. As per a graph from Spectator report, mission rates have decreased from four to three days for those under age of 50, while for anor age bracket of 50 to 69, days have reduced from 6.5 to 4.5. Furr, days have decreased from eight to less than five for patients in ir 70s, and from nearly 12 to five days for those who are over age of 80. 

In dition to this, on December 23, Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) said that such a pattern would provide National Health Service with much-needed relief. "A reduced length of stay would allow more capacity within hospitals to manage this, and, to a first approximation, this would scale linearly with change, i.e. halving length of stay would permit double missions," citing SPI-M, Spectator reported.  

Findings of earlier researches

Meanwhile, preliminary data from two recent British studies suggested that new COVID-19 strain Omicron is milder than Delta. Imperial College London COVID-19 response team assessed that those infected by variant are around 20% less likely to be hospitalised at all than those afflicted with Delta version, and seem to be 40% lesser likely to be mitted to a hospital for a night or more. 

Omicron cases in UK

Furrmore, overall number of Omicron variant cases in United Kingdom has reached 2,29,666, with 19,544 ditional cases reported on Thursday. number of fresh COVID-19 infections in UK has reached 1,89,213 with a 53% increase in London and 332 deaths. According to Worldometers, UK has registered 12,748,050 cases of Coronavirus since outbreak, and 1,48,421 deaths. 

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