Deaths in vaccinated people hospitalised due to Omicron at 10%, lower than 22% in those unvaccinated: Govt

Top government authorities on February 3 highlighted that 10 percent of the deaths due to the Omicron variant had happened in vaccinated people who ended up in hospitals, as compared with 22 per cent in those who were not vaccinated against COVID-19.

About 91 percent of those vaccinated who died due to infection had comorbidities, against 83 percent of those unvaccinated who succumbed to the infectious disease.

These results were stressed to underscore that COVID vaccines may be largely protecting people from severe COVID-19 and deaths.

The findings were part of a study involving data from 37 hospitals across India, which are part of the National COVID Clinical Registry, said Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Dr Balram Bhargava in a press briefing by the health ministry on COVID status in the country.

For the study, clinical characteristics and outcome from people hospitalised between November 15-December 16, presumably due to the Delta variant and between December 16-January 17, presumably due to the Omicron variant were compared.

These included 564 hospitalised due to Delta variant and 956 hospitalised due to the Omicron variant.

The results showed that while the mean age of people hospitalised due to Omicron, at 44 years may have been lower as compared to 55 years in people admitted due to infection with Delta variant, majority of the hospitalised patient during the third wave also had comorbidities.

Significantly, sore throat was the only symptom present in higher number of patients—29 percent, as compared to 16 percent -- in the Omicron wave, as compared to most other symptoms.

The analysis also showed that need for oxygen (36.1 percent vs 45.5 percent) and mechanical ventilation (5.4 percent vs 11.2 percent) was also higher in those unvaccinated  when compared to hospitalised patients who had been inoculated.

Dr V K Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog who also heads the National COVID task force said that trend so far has shown that only 3-4 percent of those infected with Omicron needed hospitalisation.

“There are some states where this figure may be slightly more and few others where this may be a little lesser but it is mostly 3-4 percent people needing hospital admission,” he said.

He also said that the pandemic situation in India seems to be improving with a consistent decline in daily new COVID cases and test positivity rate.