Omicron ‘less severe in children’

CHILDREN admitted to hospital with Omicron typically have less severe illness and shorter stays, figures suggest.

Scientists said patients under the age of one are accounting for a higher proportion of admissions than in previous waves. But they stressed they are not particularly sick, are less likely to need oxygen or intensive care and none of them are known to have died from the variant.

Many are likely to be ‘incidental’ cases – those who have caught Covid because of the high levels of infections but been admitted for something else. The data was compiled from around 50 hospitals by the Covid-19 Clinical Information Network for Sage. It shows 42.2 per cent of children admitted with Covid from December 14, 2021 to January 12, 2022 were under the age of one. This is up from 30.2 per cent between May and December 13 last year.

But the length of stay in hospital has fallen in childhood age groups over that period – and by an even greater amount since the start of the pandemic.