Delta ‘twice as likely’ as Alpha to land people in hospital

Patients with the Delta variant of SARS-Cov-2 are more than twice as likely to be hospitalised than those with the Alpha variant, according to findings from the UK.
Researchers analysed data from 43,338 COVID-19 cases in England between 29 March and 23 May this year, when both variants of concern were circulating in the community.
Of the 34,656 Alpha cases, 764 (2.2%) required hospital care within 14 days of testing positive for the virus, compared with 196 of the 8692 Delta cases (2.3%), data showed.
After adjustment for confounders — including age, ethnicity, deprivation and vaccination status — the researchers found the risk of hospital admission was 2.3-fold higher for those with the Delta variant compared with the Alpha variant.