CT Coronavirus: CDC Confirms Omicron Less Dangerous Than Delta
CONNECTICUT —The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed what most local public health officials in the Northeast have suspected about the omicron variant.
Despite the recent variant's much higher transmissibility, and the surge in hospitalizations that has caused, omicron's severity does not approach the danger levels of previous pandemic peaks.
Disease severity indicators, including length of stay, ICU admission, and death, were all lower under omicron, according to a report from the CDC published Tuesday.
The findings are consistent with reports from South Africa, England, and Scotland, as well as from health systems in California and Texas, where the omicron variant was not associated with an increase in hospital or disease severity indicators among patients with omicron infections compared with those with delta infections.
The in-hospital severity indicators of children 18 and under, including length of stay and ICU admission, were similar to and lower during the omicron phase of the pandemic compared with those during previous high-transmission periods, according to the report.
On Tuesday, the state Department of Public Health reported the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Connecticut has dropped to 1,446, down 31 beds overnight.
DPH does not distinguish among patients who were admitted to a hospital because of COVID-19 symptoms, and those asymptomatic residents admitted for non-COVID reasons who test positive while in the hospital.
The highest number of the hospitalized —456 — are in Hartford County.
COVID-19 infections in the state have climbed over two points overnight, to 13.74 percent, reported by DPH on Tuesday.
The daily coronavirus positivity rate is a function of the number of tests compared to the number of cases confirmed positive each day. Overnight, 3,824 positive cases were logged, out of 27,834 tests taken. The numbers of tests and cases confirmed do not include those taken with at-home self-test kits.
Of the 1,446 COVID-19 patients in Connecticut, 802 (55.5 percent) are not fully vaccinated.
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For the week beginning Jan. 2, the risk of unvaccinated persons testing positive for COVID-19 as compared to fully vaccinated persons is 3.2 times greater, according to DPH, and their risk of death is 13.9 times greater.
Instructions on how to get COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters in Connecticut are available online, as is a list of walk-up clinics sponsored by DPH.
This article originally appeared on the Danbury Patch
