Lauren Dempsey, MS in Biomedicine and Law, RN, FISM News
As the Omicron variant surges in America, a number of studies released this week suggest that the most recent variant does not cause lung damage the way previous variants of COVID-19 have. Researchers have said Omicron variant infects the cells of the throat, rather than the lungs.
In a study out of Hong Kong, tissue samples taken from the bronchus showed that the Omicron variant replicated 70 times faster than the original COVID-19 virus and the Delta variant, however, it also replicated 10 times slower in the lung tissue. This research may help to better understand the reduced severity of the disease and explains why it may be more transmissible, but less deadly.
One of the lead researchers on the study, Michael Chan Chi-wai, however, gave warning that disease severity is determined by the response of the immune system. He said that “by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic. Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from the Omicron variant is likely to be very significant.”
In a peer-reviewed study released last week, South African researchers found a “decreased severity of disease” and a “lower mortality rate” when studying data from 466 COVID-19 patients hospitalized with Omicron in Tshwane. The data showed that patients only required an average of four days in the hospital compared to an average of 8.8 days earlier in the pandemic.
The study also showed that 63% of “patients in COVID-19 wards had incidental COVID-19 following a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test. Only one third (36) had COVID-19 pneumonia, of which 72% had mild to moderate disease. The remaining 38% required high care or ICU admission. Fewer than half (45%) of patients in COVID-19 wards compared to 99.5% in the first wave required oxygen supplementation.”
Fareed Abdullah from the South African Medical Research Council and lead author of the study wrote in a tweet that Omicron appears to be “a flash flood more than a wave.”
The speed with which the Omicron driven fourth wave rose, peaked and then declined has been staggering. Peak in four weeks and precipitous decline in another two. This Omicron wave is over in the City of Tshwane. It was a flash flood more than a wave.
— Fareed Abdullah (@fareedabdullah0) December 30, 2021
This research is promising as South Africa is seeing a decline in the number of cases of Omicron and has eased up on some mitigation strategies, such as lifting its midnight to 4 am curfew. Data from the South African Department of Health showed a 29.7% decrease in the number of new cases detected in the week ending Dec. 25 compared to the number of cases found in the previous week. This suggests that the country has passed the peak of the Omicron surge without a spike in hospitalizations and death.
Many are hopeful that the rest of the world will follow this pattern. Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “One of the things that we hope for is that this thing will peak after a period of a few weeks and turn around.”
Cases in the United States have been increasing, with about 400,000 a day, however Dr. Fauci recently acknowledged that “it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations as opposed to the total number of cases,” something many people have said since the beginning of the pandemic.