Zitat:
The symptoms that characterise an omicron infection differ moderately from those of the delta SARS-CoV-2 variant. The two symptoms that were consistently more prevalent among omicron than among delta cases (regardless of vaccination status) were sore throat and hoarse voice. Four of the 32 symptoms assessed were significantly less prevalent during omicron prevalence than during delta prevalence in both vaccination groups (loss of smell, altered smell, eye soreness, and sneezing) and 12 out of the 32 symptoms were significantly less prevalent overall during omicron prevalence than during delta prevalence. The most striking difference was observed for loss of sense of smell, a pathognomonic feature of earlier waves of SARS-CoV-2 infection, now present in less than 20% of cases. Moreover, many debilitating symptoms such as brain fog, eye burning, dizziness, fever, and headaches were all significantly less prevalent in omicron cases.
Additionally, hospital admission was significantly lower in patients infected during omicron prevalence than in patients infected during delta prevalence. This supports previous findings from South Africa and South Korea,
which showed the omicron variant to be milder in terms of severity. Finally, the duration of acute symptoms was shorter during omicron prevalence than during delta prevalence, with the average presentation of omicron being 2 days shorter than that of delta. Furthermore, a third dose of vaccine was associated with a greater reduction in symptom duration in participants infected during omicron prevalence compared with those infected during delta prevalence.