A research published on Friday found that those infected with the Delta form of the coronavirus are twice as likely to be hospitalized as those infected with the Alpha type, which was originally discovered in England last year.
The research examined the risk of hospitalization for those contaminated with Delta, which was initially discovered in India, to people who got Alpha. It was based on more than 43,000 COVID-19 cases of largely unvaccinated people in England.
“Our research shows that, in the lack of vaccination, any Delta pandemic will impose a higher cost on health than an Alpha pandemic,” said Anne Presanis, one of the study’s primary authors and a statistician at the University of Cambridge.
Because the study was conducted between March and May, during the early phases of Britain’s COVID-19 immunization program, it was unable to determine the additional risk of hospitalization for unvaccinated or partly vaccinated persons.
The research, which was published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, was the largest to date to examine COVID-19 cases verified by viral genome sequencing.
