Omicron with a significantly lower death rate - experts still warn against false hopes

Created: 01/23/2022, 06:52

By: Magdalena Furthauer

According to an expert, the RKI weekly report gives reason for hope: the death rate seems to be significantly lower with Omikron compared to the Delta variant.

Munich – The Corona * pandemic has had the world under control for around two years and yet one record is chasing the next.

It was only on Saturday that the RKI reported a new high in new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in Germany.

One of the reasons for this is the highly contagious omicron variant.

However, an expert now gives reason for hope: Current data clearly shows that the mortality rate of the new mutation is significantly lower than that of the delta variant.

Corona: Omicron not yet noticeable in the intensive care units

For Professor Christian Hesse, Head of the Department of Mathematical Statistics at the University of Stuttgart, the current RKI* weekly report confirms that although the omicron variant is spreading rapidly, it leads to significantly milder courses than the previous mutation. Compared to the

, he analyzes

that despite the massive increase in the number of infections, there is still no higher utilization of the intensive care units.

The 42-page RKI report states that 89 percent of new infections nationwide are now omicron cases.

Last week the proportion was still 73 percent, two weeks ago it was even 44 percent.

“One positive sign is that this is not reflected in the intensive care units.

On the contrary, the trends in new infections and the occupancy of the intensive care units have been decoupled from each other for a few weeks," said Hesse in an interview.

Omicron Variant: Fewer people in an ICU than Delta

The occupancy of the intensive care units has been declining since the peak on December 9th, the statistician says to the

.

At that time, almost 5000 patients were treated there, on January 21 "only" 2398 more. However, the general hospitalization incidence is increasing due to the high numbers, Hesse points out.

The Omicron variant appears to put far fewer people in an ICU than Delta.

© Christoph Soeder/dpa

"Only about 1 in 10 people hospitalized with Omikron require intensive care, compared to 1 in 5 at Delta," he continues.

But again he warns against false hopes, because with the current dynamic development there will be a high load on the intensive care units again.

"Because even a small proportion of a very large number of cases is still a large number," says Hesse.

Corona: Death rate with Omikron significantly lower than with Delta - vaccination protects

Probably the best news from the RKI weekly report: The mortality rate at Omikron is clearly falling compared to Delta. According to this, in the last four weeks, one person out of 2,100 people infected with omicron has died, i.e. 0.05 percent. "At Delta, this death rate in October/November 2021 was around eight times higher than currently under Omicron," said the expert in an interview. During this time, one person out of 250 infected died.

The risk of dying from a corona infection can be reduced even more with vaccination.

For those who would have received a vaccine, the probability is even halved compared to unvaccinated people.

In concrete terms, this means a mortality risk of 0.038 percent for the vaccinated and 0.071 percent for the unvaccinated, according to Hesse.