Unvaccinated people infected with the Omicron variant of coronavirus may be less prone to severe illness and requiring hospital care or dying than was the case with previous variants, a South African study showed on Friday.
Omicron globally has tended to cause less severe disease, and proportionally fewer hospital admissions and deaths, than previous variants.
In the Omicron-driven wave, severe Covid-19 outcomes were reduced mostly due to protection conferred by prior infection and/or vaccination, but intrinsically reduced virulence may account for an approximately 25 per cent reduced risk of severe hospitalisation or death compared to Delta
