The milder omicron infections have reduced hospital admissions in Austria. From the start of the corona pandemic to the end of April 2022, a total of 2.3 percent of people who tested positive were hospitalized in this country. By way of comparison: at the end of January 2022, this was still 3.9 percent. This year, however, proportionally fewer infected people ended up in hospitals, from January to April this was slightly less than one percent.
This is evident from data published on Thursday by Gesundheit Austria GmbH (GÖG). From this, 4.2 million reported Covid 19 cases were registered in the period studied from the beginning of 2020 to the end of April this year.
With 2.9 million infections, the majority since the beginning of this year have been caused by the more contagious, but usually milder, omicron variant of the pathogen SARS-CoV-2 (photo below). This high number was offset by only 28,232 hospitalizations in the first four months of 2022, equivalent to a share of 0.98 percent. 0.1 percent of all infected had to be treated in intensive care during the period, also significantly less than the 0.36 percent in the entire course of the corona pandemic until the end of April.
Duration of treatment is significantly reduced
The duration of treatment for Covid patients has also decreased significantly in recent times. The average length of stay in the intensive care unit is 12.6 days. For hospital admissions from January to April 2022, this value decreased to 7.7 days. Over the entire course of the pandemic, the infected spent an average of 11.2 days in normal wards. Most recently it was just 9.7 days, according to the updated GÖG factsheet on Covid 19 hospitalizations.
The death rate of all Covid hospital patients from the start of the pandemic to the end of May 2022 was 14.8 percent (33.4 percent in intensive care units). In the current phase with the dominance of the omicron variant (withdrawals from January to May 2022), this is still 9.0 percent (intensive 23.5 percent).
Every tenth Covid hospital patient dies
But even at Omikron, this means that almost every tenth Covid hospital patient and almost every fourth corona intensive care patient dies. In addition, at the end of May, a quarter of all Covid 19 deaths had been previously cared for in intensive care units and about 48 percent had been treated exclusively in normal wards. The rest died outside state-funded hospitals.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
