Care home residents with Omicron half as likely to be admitted to hospital

The study, funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care and published on the preprint site medRxiv, looked at the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 cases leading to hospital admission among elderly care home residents in England, comparing data before the arrival of Omicron with cases occurring after. It found that care home residents – with a median age of 85 – who were infected on or after 13 December, when the first Omicron case was detected in this group, were 50% less likely to be hospitalised than residents infected in the previous months (between 8 September and 12 December) when Delta was dominant.

The new research is part of the ongoing Vivaldi study, launched in June 2020, to investigate SARS-CoV-2 infections in care homes and inform strategies to protect residents. The Vivaldi study also looks at further questions about the impact of Covid-19 on care homes, such as the rates and duration of immunity among care home residents and the effectiveness of vaccination. Vivaldi is funded by the UK Health Security Agency.

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Author credit and media contact: 

Mark Greaves

T: +44 (0)7990 675947

E: m.greaves [at] ucl.ac.uk