Admissions to a large tertiary care hospital and Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 SARS-CoV-2 PCR positivity: primary, contributing, or incidental COVID-19 (preprint)

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.2 seem to show reduced clinical severity. We classified 172 COVID-19 Omicron patient admissions. 66.2% of patients were admitted with primary or admission-contributing COVID-19. We therefore must be careful to base healthcare and public health decisions on the total number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients alone.