A study published on Friday showed that people who have contracted the delta type of coronavirus are twice as likely to be hospitalized as those who have contracted the alpha variant, which was first discovered in England last year.
The study, which was based on more than 43,000 people with Covid-19, most of whom were not immune in England, compared the risk of hospitalization among people with delta, a strain first discovered in India, with the risk of them being hospitalized.
“Our analysis highlights that in the absence of a vaccine, any outbreak in the Delta region would impose a greater health burden than an alpha epidemic,” said Anne Brisanis, lead author of the study and a statistician at the University of Cambridge.
The study was based on cases between March and May during the early stages of Britain’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, so it was not able to assess the additional risks of hospitalization for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people.
The study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases It was the largest to date in an analysis of COVID-19 cases confirmed by virus genome sequencing.
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