Mortality from “Omicron” compared with seasonal flu

by time news

Omicron may even be less deadly than the flu, scientists say, giving hope that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is over, writes the Daily Mail.

Some experts have always argued that the coronavirus will eventually turn into a seasonal cold-like virus as the world builds up immunity through vaccines and natural infection. But the emergence of a highly mutated variant of Omicron appears to have accelerated this process.

MailOnline’s analysis shows that COVID has killed one in 33 people who tested positive at the peak of a devastating second wave last January, up from one in 670 now. But experts believe that because of Omicron, this figure may be even lower.

The case fatality rate – the proportion of confirmed infections that end in death – for seasonal flu is 0.1, which is equivalent to one death in 1,000 people.

One former British government adviser said that if this trend continues to decline, then “we have to wonder if we have the right to take any action that we would not have taken due to a bad flu season.” But other experts believe the coronavirus is much more contagious than the flu, which means it will inevitably lead to more deaths.

Meanwhile, University of Washington researchers modeling the next stage of the pandemic expect Omicron to kill 99% fewer people than the Delta coronavirus, further hinting that the new COVID variant may be less deadly than flu.

For Delta, the exact case fatality rate (IFR) has not yet been published, which is always only a fraction of the case fatality rate, as it reflects the number of deaths among everyone who contracted the virus.

But UK government advisers estimate that the total was around 0.25% before Omicron hit the scene, up from a high of around 1.5% before life-saving vaccines.

If Omicron is 99% less lethal than Delta, this suggests that the current infection fatality rate could be as low as 0.0025%, which is equivalent to one death in 40,000 people, although experts say this is unlikely. Instead, modeling from the University of Washington estimates that this figure is actually in the region of 0.07%, which means that approximately one in 1,430 infected people will die of the disease.

Leading researchers estimate the IFR for influenza to be in the 0.01 to 0.05% range, but argue that it is difficult to compare the rates for the two diseases.

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, tells MailOnline that his “very rough guess” was that people with a triple shot were at the same risk from the Omicron as they were from the flu. “Add new drugs to the mixture and it gets even more complex,” he added.

But today, scientists jumped at the estimates, saying it’s further proof that the worst days of the pandemic are over.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a sociology expert at the University of Nottingham Trent, told MailOnline that it will be several weeks before final mortality figures from Omicron are available, but if they are consistent with the conclusion that this is a less serious option, “we should ask if we have the right to take any action that we would not have taken due to a bad flu season. “

The expert asks the question: “If we had not introduced the measures in November 2019, why are we doing it now? What is the specific rationale for this? If the severity of COVID infection is reduced to the point that it is comparable to that of influenza, then we really should not accept exceptional levels of intervention. ”

According to Professor Dingwall, there will be no excuse for “any restrictions that we did not have before” if the simulations are confirmed in the coming weeks.

However, he noted that if the UK has two respiratory viruses in its population that could lead to significant hospitalization rates, the NHS may need more funds to fight both COVID and the flu to increase its capacity.

University of Washington experts who said Omicron caused 97% to 99% fewer deaths than Delta – based on case and death data – admit that their projections were more “optimistic” than those used by government scientists Great Britain.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been warned that daily deaths from COVID in the UK could surpass 6,000 per day this winter in a worst-case scenario of rapid proliferation of Omicron. But the apocalyptic prediction made by one of the modeling subgroups was called “fantastic.”

Daily deaths from the coronavirus peaked at just under 1,400 at the height of the second wave, before ministers embarked on a massive vaccination campaign. And research shows that two doses of the current crop of vaccinations still dramatically reduce patients’ risk of getting seriously ill if they contract the virus, even if they initially did little to protect against disease.

Real-world data shows that booster vaccines, already given to 34 million people across the UK, or 60.1% of children over the age of 12, further boost immunity.

Independent scientists have questioned the University of Washington team’s assessment, saying it does not look plausible, and there is still a lot of uncertainty in the Omicron data.

The researchers did not offer an actual IFR estimate for Omicron, which scientists still barely understand, given that the first time a new variant of the coronavirus was discovered was in mid-November. The team said: “Based on the available data, we expect the infection death rate to be 97-99 percent lower than Delta. The sheer number of infections and the moderate number of hospitalizations could still lead to a peak in reported (global) daily deaths of over 9,000 in early February. ”

Research has shown that the Delta variant of the coronavirus, first discovered in India, was twice as deadly as the parent virus, which was thought to have an IFR of around 1.4%. But even using that figure would equate to an IFR of about 0.03% if Omicron were indeed 97-99% less lethal, making it look like the flu.

Professor Kevin McConway, a statistician at the Open University, noted that experts at the University of Washington admit there is uncertainty in their predictions. According to him, it is possible that they “somewhere made a mistake in their numbers.” But he said the real forecast – up to 330 deaths a day – is plausible.

Dr. Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, said he believed the future of COVID could be “kept in check” with vaccinations, insisting that “there was no doubt” that vaccines were dramatically changing the course of the pandemic. He added: “The immunity we create appears to suppress new variants that cause severe disease.” But the expert warned that it is not an “inevitable” option for the coronavirus to eventually turn into a virus that simply causes symptoms of the common cold.

A MailOnline analysis shows that the COVID death rate fell to 0.14% on December 28 – the lowest ever – after a daily decline since November 18. According to experts, the indicator is calculated by comparing the average number of deaths with the average number of cases of the disease two weeks earlier, which roughly corresponds to the time it takes for the disease to spread. This means that the case fatality rate was already declining before the new strain actually began spreading in Britain in mid-December, suggesting that vaccines have played a huge role in the fight against the virus. But that figure is also slightly skewed by the increased testing rate: the number of smears performed each time has increased by about 245% over the past year.

And the data shows that cases have mostly occurred in people under the age of 50, who have always been less at risk of dying from the virus.

Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that the UK’s COVID death rate has been declining in recent weeks, but this is in part “likely due to the delay in reporting deaths over Christmas.” He said that “the fatality rate for Omicron appears to be lower than we saw with previous options, and is probably below 0.2 percent now,” as does the flu death rate.

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