Omicron has been the dominant variant of the coronavirus in Belgium for almost two weeks now, but experts say it's difficult to gauge how many Covid-19 hospitalisations are linked to the strain.
The number of new cases recorded on a daily basis in Belgium has doubled since last week due to the Omicron variant, which now accounts for between 80% and 90% of all cases in the country, virologist Steven Van Gucht announced during Thursday's Consultative Committee.
But while hospital admissions started to rise at the end of December and that trend appears set to continue, there seem to be few Covid-19 patients currently in hospitals due to an infection with the Omicron strain.
There is little official information on the situation in Belgian hospitals, as most of them are not systematically looking into this; however, the University Hospital in Ghent (UZ Gent) stated that preliminary figures showed 90% of patients are still infected with the Delta variant, the previously dominant strain.
"These findings are cautiously hopeful," one lung specialist at the hospital, Eva Van Braeckel, told De Standaard. However, she emphasised that it is still too early in the fifth wave to draw any major conclusions from this data. Usually, a rise in infections takes time before it's reflected in hospitalisation and death figures.
"Everything depends on the total number of infections. If the virus is able to spread en masse, the number of hospital admissions will still be considerable."
'Not pleasant, but less life-threatening'
Remarkably, not a single patient with Omicron has been admitted to the intensive care department at UZ Gent so far.
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Van Braeckel said the explanation for this lies in the fact that the Omicron variant is more likely to settle in the upper airways, rather than in the lungs.
"We see patients with very severe sore throats - much more severe than in previous waves," Van Braeckel said. "It can be very unpleasant, but fortunately it is not life-threatening."
However, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that although Omicron does appear to be less severe compared to Delta, especially in the vaccinated population, it does not mean it should be categorised as mild.
"Just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising people and it is killing people," he stressed during a press conference on Thursday,
Reduced risk, especially following vaccination
Overall, painting an exact picture of how many hospitalised people are infected with the new variant is a problem many countries are facing, according to Van Gucht, as by the time people end up in the hospital, the virus load has already decreased to a level that it is difficult to ascertain what variant caused the infection.
Various studies by the United Kingdom's Health Security Agency based on analysis of millions of cases have already shown that the risk of hospital admission from emergency departments with Omicron was approximately one-third of that for the Delta variant. The risk is especially reduced for vaccinated people.
"The risk of hospitalisation is lower for Omicron cases after two and three doses of [a coronavirus] vaccine, with an 81% (77 to 85%) reduction in the risk of hospitalisation after three doses compared to unvaccinated Omicron cases."
Van Gucht also stressed the importance of getting vaccinated, especially to avoid life-threatening outcomes. "Recent analyses show that the risk of ending up in intensive care is six to nine times lower after vaccination,” Van Gucht said. “I cannot stress the importance of vaccination and booster doses enough.”
