ABSTRACT
Aim: To estimate the length of stay distributions of hospitalised COVID-19 cases during a mixed Omicron-Delta epidemic in New South Wales, Australia (16 Dec 2021 -- 7 Feb 2022), and compare these to estimates produced over a Delta-only epidemic in the same population (1 Jul 2021 -- 15 Dec 2022). Background: The distribution of the duration that clinical cases of COVID-19 occupy hospital beds (the `length of stay') is a key factor in determining how incident caseloads translate into health system burden as measured through ward and ICU occupancy. Results: Using data on the hospital stays of 19,574 individuals, we performed a competing-risk survival analysis of COVID-19 clinical progression. During the mixed Omicron-Delta epidemic, we found that the mean length of stay for individuals who were discharged directly from ward without an ICU stay was, for age groups 0-39, 40-69 and 70+ respectively, 2.16 (95\% CI: 2.12--2.21), 3.93 (95\% CI: 3.78--4.07) and 7.61 days (95\% CI: 7.31--8.01), compared to 3.60 (95\% CI: 3.48--3.81), 5.78 (95\% CI: 5.59--5.99) and 12.31 days (95\% CI: 11.75--12.95) across the preceding Delta epidemic (15 Jul 2021 -- 15 Dec 2021). We also considered data on the stays of individuals within the Hunter New England Local Health District, where it was reported that Omicron was the only circulating variant, and found mean ward-to-discharge length of stays of 2.05 (95\% CI: 1.80--2.30), 2.92 (95\% CI: 2.50--3.67) and 6.02 days (95\% CI: 4.91--7.01) for the same age groups.