Omicron covid cases are less severe than Delta, new studies say

AS THE of covid-19 washes over and , it is only a matter of time before the variant breaks over the rest of the world. First spied in , Omicron had been in 106 countries, and counting, by December 22nd. The world has been here before, with new variants causing . The hope this time around, however, is that layers of immunity from past infections and vaccines—layers which now exist, in some combination, in every country on Earth—will make serious Omicron infections a lot less common than serious infections of other variants were. Three new studies suggest that hope will be borne out. In one, published on December 22nd, researchers from Imperial College London pored over early data on Omicron in England. They found that people recorded as infected with the variant are about 15-20% less likely to seek hospital care and 40% less likely to be admitted for a night or longer than those with Delta. They had shorter hospital stays, too.