Study examines the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 subvariant - News-Medical.Net

In a caller survey that represents the largest to day to analyse the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 subvariant (the strain making a re-emergence this fall), a squad led by investigators astatine Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) determined that the BA.2 subvariant is little terrible than the erstwhile Delta variant and little terrible to an adjacent greater grade than the archetypal Omicron variant.

This signifier revealed successful the JAMA Network Open survey suggests that the severity of SARS-Cov-2 whitethorn beryllium diminishing.

To supply an close appraisal of the severity of SARS-Cov-2 variants supra and beyond erstwhile studies, the researchers utilized a method called entropy balancing to relationship for imaginable confounding factors specified arsenic anterior infections, vaccinations, treatments, and comorbidities. The squad applied this method to information leveraged from the Mass General Brigham's physics wellness grounds strategy that's linked to a COVID-19 vaccine registry.

Of 102,315 confirmed COVID-19 cases from March 3, 2020 to June 20, 2022, determination were 20,770 labeled arsenic Delta variants, 52,605 labeled arsenic Omicron B.1.1.529 variants (the archetypal Omicron variant), and 28,940 labeled arsenic Omicron BA.2 subvariants.

Mortality rates were 0.7% for Delta, 0.4% for the archetypal Omicron variant, and 0.3% for Omicron BA.2. After adjustments, the likelihood of decease were much than 2-times higher for the Delta and the archetypal Omicron variant compared with Omicron BA.2. Patients with Delta and archetypal Omicron variants were besides much apt to request hospitalizations, invasive ventilation, and intensive attraction admissions.

While the SARS-CoV-2 microorganism ever has the imaginable to mutate to a much deadly form, erstwhile you look astatine the caller trajectory of Delta, Omicron BA.1, to Omicron BA.2, the microorganism seems to beryllium getting intrinsically little severe. Hopefully this inclination volition continue. We tin proceed to usage our analytics strategy and method to measure galore different questions specified arsenic which vaccinations person the astir interaction connected preventing agelong COVID, oregon whether definite treatments trim the likelihood of agelong COVID."

Zachary Strasser, MD, MBA, Lead Author, Academic Physician, Laboratory of Computer Science astatine MGH and Instructor of Medicine astatine Harvard Medical School

Additional co-authors see Noah Greifer, PhD, Aboozar Hadavand, PhD, Shawn N. Murphy, MD, PhD, and Hossein Estiri, PhD.

This enactment was supported successful portion by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Human Genome Research Institute.