Coronavirus: Why you should consider taking COVID-related measures, even if Omicron is less severe

Several studies have indicated that the Omicron is less severe but more rampant than the Delta.

A BMJ study found that symptomatic infection with omicron variant is milder and shorter than with delta.

Another study suggests Omicron may be 50 percent relatively less severe than Delta, leading to a lower number of hospitalisation cases.

However, while all this evidence highlights the less concerning features of the Omicron variant, studies also highlight how the Omicron variant is much more infectious than the Delta variant.

Early reports from South Africa claimed that Omicron is more transmissible than Delta. As per the data, cases spiked rapidly from 300 a day to 3,000 a day over a two-week period.

That said, even if hospitalisation risks were higher with Delta, given that the Omicron variant is approximately six times more transmissible, likely to cause a higher number of infections, the risk of hospitalization would only be greater with the latter.