According to new research, the risk of long-term COVID was lower during the Omicron wave compared to the Delta wave.
New research has found that the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant is less likely to cause long-term COVID than the Delta variant.
Researchers at King’s College London’s analysis of data from the ZOE COVID Symptom study application are published today (June 18, 2022) in a letter to the medical journal The Lancet. The findings come from the first peer-reviewed study to report on the long-term risk of COVID and the Omicron variant.
The NICE guidelines define long-term COVID as having new or ongoing symptoms four weeks or more after the onset of the disease. Symptoms include fatigue, difficulty breathing, loss of concentration, and joint pain. Symptoms can negatively affect day-to-day activities and in some cases can be very limiting.
The researchers found that the chances of experiencing long-term COVID were 20 to 50 percent lower during the Omicron period compared to the Delta period, depending on age and time since vaccination.
The study identified 56,003 adult cases in the UK that tested positive for the first time between December 20, 2021 and March 9, 2022, when Omicron was the dominant strain. The researchers compared these cases with 41,361 cases that tested positive for the first time between June 1, 2021, and November 27, 2021, when the Delta variant was dominant.
The analysis shows that 4.4% of Omicron cases were long VOCIDs, compared to 10.8% of Delta cases. However, the absolute number of people who experienced COVID for a long time was, in fact, higher during the Omicron period. This was due to the large number of people infected with Omicron from December 2021 to February 2022. The UK National Statistics Office estimated that the number of people with long COVID increased by 1, 3 million in January 2022 to 2 million on May 1, 2022..
The lead author, Dr Claire Steves of King’s College London, said: “The Omicron variant seems to be substantially less likely to cause Long-COVID than previous variants, but still 1 in 23 people taking COVID-19 They have had symptoms for more than four years. Given the number of people affected, it is important that we continue to support them at work, at home and within the NHS. “
Reference: “Long COVID risk associated with delta versus omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2” by Michela Antonelli, Joan Capdevila Pujol, Tim D Spector, Sebastien Ourselin and Claire J Steves, June 18, 2022, The Lancet.DOI: 10.1016 / S0140-6736 (22) 00941-2