An international observational study to assess the impact of the Omicron variant emergence on the clinical epidemiology of COVID-19 in hospitalised patients
Authors:
HPRU-EZI Authors: Calum Semple, Peter Horby, Jake Dunning, Mark Pritchard
Abstract:
Whilst timely clinical characterisation of infections caused by novel SARS-CoV-2 variants is necessary for evidence-based policy response, individual-level data on infecting variants are typically only available for a minority of patients and settings. Here, we propose an innovative approach to study changes in COVID-19 hospital presentation and outcomes after the Omicron variant emergence using publicly available population-level data on variant relative frequency to infer SARS-CoV-2 variants likely responsible for clinical cases. We apply this method to data collected by a large international clinical consortium before and after the emergence of the Omicron variant in different countries.
Journal:
eLife
PMID:
36197074