Posted 6 hours ago,
Reading 2 mins.
in collaboration with
Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
Having acquired the reputation of being less dangerous than all other variants of Sars-Cov-2, Omicron is according to a study which has yet to be validated, just as dangerous as other variants of the coronavirus.
It was said to be very transmissible but less dangerous. However, according to a new study conducted by American researchers, the Omicron variant is actually as dangerous as previous versions of the virus.
Omicron as serious as Delta and the others
These scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital, Minerva University and Harvard Medical School, who conducted this work with 130,000 patients. “To test this hypothesis, we linked state-level immunization data with quality-controlled electronic health records from a large health care system, including 13 hospitals, in Massachusetts, USA.“write the researchers.
They came to the following conclusion:We found that the risks of hospitalization and mortality were almost identical between the different periodsreferring to times over the past two years when different variants were dominant across the globe.
The limitations of this study
To arrive at this observation, they compared the risks of hospitalization and mortality on the different waves of the virus. However, their study still needs to be peer reviewed, as it is only in the pre-publication stage at the moment. The authors are nevertheless aware of certain limitations, relating to the number of vaccinated patients as well as an underestimated total number of infections during the last Omicron waves. Indeed, their data excluded patients who performed rapid tests at home.
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“The microbe is nothing, it’s the land that is everything”
For Dr Gérald Kierzek, the fact that Omicron is considered as dangerous as the previous variants of Sars-Cov-2 is not a surprise. “It is the host that counts in this story and the terrain in which the virus will evolve that counts. explains the emergency doctor, medical director of Doctissimo. “As Claude Bernard said so well, the microbe is nothing, it’s the ground that is everything. Here, when the virus attacks a weakened organism, it is as dangerous as its variants. So the take-home message is to strengthen the ground, and that means improving your immune defences!” concludes the doctor.
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