This text is taken from the June 20 Coronavirus Courier, the last in the series. To subscribe to one of our newsletters, click here.
Omicron would cause fewer long-term symptoms than the previous variants, according to the first major study on the subject.
British researchers conclude that Omicron is relatively less dangerous on an individual level than its variant counterparts. To get there, they compared 56,003 adults who tested positive for the first time between December 20, 2021 and March 9, 2022 with 41,361 adults who tested positive for the first time between June 1, 2021 and November 27, 2021.
Among Omicron cases, 4.5% of patients experienced long COVID, while among Delta cases, that rate was around 11%. In this case, “long COVID” is recognized if a patient still has symptoms four weeks after their onset.
“Omicron cases were less likely to experience long COVID across all vaccination schedules,” the researchers note.
The study was published in the journal The Lancet and has been peer reviewed. This is the first study of this scale on the subject, according to the authors.
These results are consistent with those of other studies indicating that the Omicron variant is less dangerous than the others, but not benign.
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