<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#f9f9fa">
<p> </p>
<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <a
class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.hartgroup.org/covid-19-is-becoming-more-mild/">hartgroup.org</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">COVID-19 is becoming more mild</h1>
<div class="meta-data">
<div class="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">3-4 minutes</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div>
<figure><img
src="https://www.hartgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/RunnyNose-1024x678.jpg"
alt="" width="399" height="264"></figure>
<p><em>More good news being ignored by media</em></p>
</div>
<hr>
<p>COVID-19 has been presenting as a common cold since May. So <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHBua3aXQ7c"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> (6 mins in)
Prof Tim Spector, who runs the Zoe Symptom tracker app. Headache,
sore throat and runny nose are now the three most common
presenting symptoms. There is no loss of smell and cough is only
the fifth most common symptom. </p>
<p>Rather than present this for the good news it is, the researchers
chose to present it as a <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/delta-variant-covid-symptoms-include-headaches-sore-throat-and-runny-nose"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">warning</a> that
people may fail to recognise it. If COVID-19 is becoming more mild
in its symptomatology, fewer people will develop severe symptoms
and fewer people will die. One of the old circulating common cold
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">coronaviruses</a>,
OC43, was thought to have begun as a pandemic strain meaning there
is a precedent for such an evolution. If this is the case it is
undoubtedly good news.</p>
<p>Is there evidence of this effect in hospital admission data? A
simple way to analyse the data is to compare total cases diagnosed
in one week with hospital admissions a week later. Taking cases
for the week <a
href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ending 31 May</a> and
comparing them to admissions to hospital of already diagnosed
cases the week ending 7 June, the hospitalisation rate was 18% for
the Alpha variant and only 3.4% for the Delta variant. </p>
<p>It could be argued that this is because older people are not
catching the Delta variant (Indian variant), yet. Indeed, <a
href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/992981/10_June_2021_Risk_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">models</a> which
account for the age difference purport to show that the Delta
variant is more dangerous. There have been only 223 total
admissions of patients diagnosed in the community since February.
Is it really reasonable to conclude that the Delta strain leads to
more hospital admissions by age based on such small numbers,
especially when the raw data shows it leads to 1/6th of the
admissions of the Alpha variant?</p>
<p>The overall percentage of cases that end up in hospital has
fallen since the Delta variant became dominant. Furthermore, the
slight rise in hospital admissions has not translated into the
expected rise in total patients. This means that the length of
stay for patients admitted with a positive test is shorter than it
was before, again indicating good news.</p>
<p>Claims also continue to be made that the Delta variant is more <a
href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/992981/10_June_2021_Risk_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">transmissible</a>. The
best real world measure of the transmissibility of a variant is
the secondary attack rate: the proportion of contacts that catch
the virus from a known case. Much has been made of the higher
transmission rate in the Delta variant. The transmission rate of a
new variant will, by definition, be higher than the current
variant. However, the transmission rate for the Alpha (UK) variant
<a
href="https://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/06/13/claims-the-indian-variant-is-hyper-transmissible-are-nonsense-heres-the-graph-that-proves-it/"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fell</a> from 15% to
8% over the last 6 months at a fairly constant rate independent of
the level of vaccination. The transmission rate for the Delta
variant peaked at less than 14% and is already falling. The
transmission rate need only be slightly higher than the Alpha
variant for the Delta to become dominant, as it has, but the other
claims about transmissibility have been overblown.</p>
<p>Overall there is minimal real world evidence of the Delta variant
behaving in a significantly more transmissible or dangerous way
and the symptomatology appears to be becoming more mild.</p>
</body>
</html>