Purpose: Omicron, a variant of COVID-19, is becoming a major issue of global concern. Its high transmissibility may bring challenges to the distribution of health care in a large population country like China. Investigating the behavior of the virus in the Chinese population will certainly help to plan for the upcoming surge of Omicron. Therefore, we made a preliminary analysis of the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of suspected cases of Omicron at the early stage of the surge.
Patients and Methods: The study was conducted in Nanyang Central Hospital, a tertiary hospital, from 21st December, 2022 to 8th January, 2023. A total of 210 patients underwent demographic characteristics and clinical symptom collection from their medical records. Moreover, sputum culture was also conducted to explore the types of bacterial or fungal infections.
Results: Our results showed that 5 patients (4.1%) were aged 16– 49, 40 patients (32.5%) were aged 50– 70, and 78 patients (63.4%) were aged 70 or more in the severe group. The proportion of male patients with severe diseases infected with Omicron is higher than that of female patients and the proportion of severe cases increases with age. The main symptoms of patients infected with Omicron are cough (91, 74.0%), fever (90, 73.2%), and asthma (73, 59.3%). The pathogens Streptococcus pneumoniae (71, 31.0%), Staphylococcus aureus (46, 20.1%), Mycoplasma pneumoniae (26, 11.4%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (18, 7.9%), Acinetobacter baumannii (13, 5.7%), and Haemophilus influenzae were detected in lower respiratory tract.
Conclusion: This study suggests that age > 70 is a risk factor for severe COVID-19 and that patients often have bacterial or fungal infections. Our research results may help to provide effective treatment for patients with Omicron infection and also contribute to health economic analysis and research to assist future public health decision-making.
Keywords: COVID-19, Omicron variant, epidemiological characteristics, infections