What Is the Difference Between Strains of Coronavirus Omicron and Delta

Every­thing you want­ed to know about the symp­toms, sever­i­ty, and con­ta­gious­ness of these two strains, but were too lazy to ask your doc­tor.

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The delta strain of coro­n­avirus no longer dom­i­nates the world. Now there is a new strain — Omi­cron. This strain is less like­ly to cause severe symp­toms, but it spreads much faster, even among vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple.

In a new arti­cle, we decid­ed to col­lect all the facts about these two strains of coro­n­avirus and com­pare them.

Symptoms of strains Omicron and Delta

Atten­tion! No mat­ter what we say about dif­fer­ent strains, it is still a coro­n­avirus. So some symp­toms may be more pro­nounced, but they are still symp­toms of the coro­n­avirus.

Doc­tors say that peo­ple with coro­n­avirus show a wide range of symp­toms, both mild and severe. And although this is not an exhaus­tive list, there are symp­toms that are com­mon with coro­n­avirus:

• fever and chills;
• short­ness of breath, dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing;
• weak­ness;
• cough;
• mus­cle and body pain;
• headache;
• loss of taste, smell;
• sore throat;
• nau­sea, vom­it­ing, diar­rhea;
• stuffy nose, run­ny nose.

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There is no offi­cial infor­ma­tion about what symp­toms are com­mon with Omi­cron and Delta strains. But there is some gen­er­al infor­ma­tion:

• For exam­ple, stud­ies say that Delta caus­es headache and run­ny nose more often, and fever, cough and loss of smell are rare.
• Micron How­ev­er, accord­ing to research, it is very sim­i­lar to the com­mon cold. Its five main symp­toms are headache, run­ny nose, fatigue, sneez­ing, and sore throat.
• Both Delta and Omi­cronalmost no fever, cough, loss of smell and taste.

Infectivity of Omicron and Delta strains

When Delta just emerged, sci­en­tists thought it was more than twice as con­ta­gious as oth­er vari­ants of the coro­n­avirus. Unvac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple are still at risk, and they are not only more like­ly to get infect­ed, but also to infect oth­ers. Ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple can still get the Delta strain, but the symp­toms will be poor­er. The vac­cine still pro­tects against severe symp­toms and death.

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As for the strain Micron, to date, there is no com­plete data on its con­ta­gious­ness. Pre­lim­i­nary stud­ies show that the Omi­cron strain spreads faster than the Delta strain. Sci­en­tists have found that in the same place, Omi­cron spreads faster than Delta in vac­ci­nat­ed and revac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple. In unvac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple, the rates of con­ta­gious­ness are the same. The pre­lim­i­nary con­clu­sion is that such infec­tious­ness of Omi­cron is due to its abil­i­ty to avoid the effects of immu­ni­ty.

As of the end of Decem­ber 2021, the Omi­cron strain is replac­ing the Delta strain.

The severity of Omicron and Delta strains

Although Omi­cron is more con­ta­gious than Delta, its symp­toms are much milder, accord­ing to research. About this also wrote on her twit­ter Rochelle Walen­sky, MD, direc­tor of the US Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion.

“A new study on the sever­i­ty of Omi­cron ver­sus Delta. 53% less risk of symp­to­matic hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. 74% low­er risk of being admit­ted to an inten­sive care unit. 91% less risk of death.”

What does it all mean?

First, despite the fact that Omi­cron and Delta dif­fer in symp­toms, sever­i­ty and con­ta­gious­ness, it is still a coro­n­avirus. The basic pre­ven­tion mea­sures are still the same: you need to get a vac­cine, wear a mask, main­tain social dis­tance and stay away from oth­ers if you are sick.

Sec­ond­ly, with regard to the Omi­cron strain, you need to get a vac­cine and also get a boost­er dose of the vac­cine if your fam­i­ly doc­tor allows it.

As new infor­ma­tion becomes avail­able, we will update the arti­cle. But you will be able to get new and up-to-date infor­ma­tion faster from your doc­tor.

And, of course, do not pan­ic. Despite the fact that the coro­n­avirus is dan­ger­ous, do not wind your­self up!