The cases of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron are increasing at a fast pace across the globe. Meanwhile, preliminary data from a large hospital in South Africa’s Omicron Epicenter suggests that the number of COVID-19 infections has increased, but has also clarified that patients are rarely in need of serious medical help.
The Steve Biko and Tshwane District Hospital in Pretoria reported 166 new cases between November 14 and November 29, out of which 42 patients are still admitted to the ward.
Now, Infectious diseases doctor Fareed Abdullah at the South African Medical Research Council and Steve Biko Hospital has revealed details about the Omicron variant after closely observing the symptoms in these patients.
The National Institute For Communicable Diseases Of South Africa had confirmed that almost all new cases in Epicenter are of the Omicron variant. However, D. Abdullah and his team are yet to gather evidence about the same.
Omicron strain: How were the symptoms of the patients?
According to the report, most of the patients admitted to the COVID-19 ward did not require oxygen, as was seen in the previous wave. A total of 38 patients were admitted on December 2.
Out of these, 38 were adults, 6 were vaccinated, 24 were unvaccinated and 8 were people whose vaccination status was not known. Only one fully vaccinated person was put on oxygen.
About 19 percent of the patients admitted to the COVID-19 ward were children above the age of 9 years, while 28 percent of the patients were between 30 and 39 years old.
According to the report of COVID-19 Ward, no patient died here in the last two weeks. In the last 18 months, the average time to be admitted to the COVID ward has been 2.8 to 8.5 days. So far, a total of 10 people have died here, however, the deaths have not been linked to the Omicron variant. Doctors state that things will become a lot clearer in the next two weeks.
