Transmissibility, hospitalization, and intensive care admissions due to omicron compared to delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 in Catalonia: A cohort study and ecological analysis

The transmissibility of omicron using variant screening data from primary care practices (PCP) and hospital admissions. In addition, we used this data from PCP to establish the two periods when delta and omicron were, respectively, dominant (above 95% of cases). After that, we performed a population...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Català Sabaté, Martí|||0000-0003-3308-9905, Coma, Ermengol, Alonso Muñoz, Sergio|||0000-0002-3989-8757, Andres Lacueva, Cristina, Blanco, Ignacio, Antón, Andrés, Escales Bordoy, Antoni, Cardona Iglesias, Pere Joan|||0000-0001-5623-7873, Fina Avilés, Francesc, Martró Català, Elisa, Medina, Manuel, Moras Planes, Núria, Saludes Montoro, Verònica, Prats Soler, Clara|||0000-0002-1398-7559, Prieto Alhambra, Daniel, Álvarez Lacalle, Enrique|||0000-0001-6824-6857
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/372256
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/372256
https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.961030
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:COVID-19 (Disease)
COVID-19
Severity
Ecological study
COVID-19 (Malaltia) (Catalunya)
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Matemàtiques i estadística::Anàlisi numèrica::Modelització matemàtica
Descripción
Sumario:The transmissibility of omicron using variant screening data from primary care practices (PCP) and hospital admissions. In addition, we used this data from PCP to establish the two periods when delta and omicron were, respectively, dominant (above 95% of cases). After that, we performed a population-based cohort analysis to calculate the rates of hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions for both periods and to estimate reduction in severity. Rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated and stratified by age and vaccination status. In a second analysis, the differential substitution model in primary care vs. hospitals allowed us to obtain a population-level average change in severity.We have included 48,874 cases during the delta period and 560,658 during the omicron period. During the delta period, on average, 3.8% of the detected cases required hospitalization for COVID-19. This percentage dropped to 0.9% with omicron [RR of 0.46 (95% CI: 0.43 to 0.49)]. For ICU admissions, it dropped from 0.8 to 0.1% [RR 0.25 (95% CI: 0.21 to 0.28)]. The proportion of cases hospitalized or admitted to ICU was lower in the vaccinated groups, independently of the variant. Omicron was associated with a reduction in risk of admission to hospital and ICU in all age and vaccination status strata. The differential substitution models showed an average RR between 0.19 and 0.50.Both independent methods consistently show an important decrease in severity for omicron relative to delta. The systematic reduction happens regardless of age. The severity is also reduced for non-vaccinated and vaccinated groups, but it remains always higher in the non-vaccinated population. This suggests an overall reduction in severity, which could be intrinsic to the omicron variant. The fact is that the RR in ICU admission is systematically smaller than in hospitalization points in the same direction.