COVID-19 Omicron Variant: New Study Reveals This Strain is Less Severe Than Delta in Children Aged 4 Years Old and Below

A new study recently suggested that children below five years old, infected with the COVID-19 Omicron variant, have less risk of severe health outcomes than those infected with the Delta strain.

This research, a EurekAlert! report specified, is the first large-scale study initiative to compare the health outcomes of COVID-19 infection from Omicron to Delta in children aged four years old and below, the age group yet able to get injected with the vaccine.

The findings revealed that the Omicron variant is six to eight times more contagious than the Delta variant. The severe clinical results ranged from a 16-percent lower risk for visits to the emergency room to an 85-percent less risk for more mechanical ventilation.

More so, approximately 1.8 percent of children infected with the Omicron strain were admitted to the hospital, compared to 3.3 percent with the Delta variant.

Previous COVID-19 Infections Examined

The Case Western Reserve-led research team examined the electronic health records, or EHRs, of over 651,640 children in the United States who had a medical encounter with healthcare organizations from September 2021 to January 2022, including over 22,772 children who were infected with the Omicron variant in late December and late January, to over 66,000 children infected with the Delta was dominant in the fall.

The study, published in the JAMA Pediatrics journal, compared the records of over 10,000 children immediately before Omicron was detected in the US, though when Delta was still prevalent.

Essentially, children below five years of age are not yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccines and have a low rate of previous COVID-19 infections, limiting their pre-existing immunity.

The researchers analyzed clinical health outcomes for pediatric patients during a 14-day window after COVID-19 infection. Among the factors they examined were visits to the emergency room, hospital admissions, ICU stay, and use of mechanical ventilation.

Omicron Vs. Delta

A more extensive demographic data evaluation showed that children infected with the Omicron variant were 1.5 years of age against 1.7 years of age on average, and had lesser comorbidities.

According to the Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Research Professor at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine Pamela Davis, the primary conclusion of their study was that many more children were infected with the Omicron variant when compared to the Delta strain, although the children infected are not affected as severely as were children affected with the Delta strain. Nonetheless, since there are so many children infected, hospitals were affected by an influx of young kids during the winter season.

Professor of biomedical informatics and director of the Center for AI in Drug Discovery at the School of Medicine Rong Xu said they saw the number of hospitalization within this age group dramatically increase in January of this year due to the infection rate of Omicron being roughly 10 to 15 times compared to that of the Delta variant.

The CDC's Recommendation

Xu explained, that the Omicron variant is less severe than the Delta strain, but the reduction of the severity range in clinical outcomes is just 16 to 85 percent.

Moreover, since many unvaccinated children were infected, the long-term impacts of COVID-19 infections on the brain, heart, immune systems, and other organs of children stay unknown, not to mention, worrisome.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that those aged five and older are injected with a COVID-19 vaccine, and fully vaccinated people aged 12 years old and above get a booster shot, as stated in a similar ScienceDaily report.

According to the agency's updated guidance, Americans don't need to mask indoors anymore, in counties with low or medium "COVID-19 Community Levels."

Related information about COVID-19 in children is shown on Fox 13 Tampa Bay's YouTube video below:

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