COVID-19 category during period of delta and omicron predominance in Malaysia: A descriptive study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged that have been found to differ in transmissibility and severity. Assessments of the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 delta and omicron variant are vital to evaluate the public health influence related to its rapid global dissemination. Material(s) and Method(s) Medical records of COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized in Hospital Sungai Buloh during the period of Delta and Omicron predominance were reviewed retrospectively and analyzed. Result(s) Delta wave was studied between May 2021 and July 2021, among the 5815 individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the highest number of cases were seen in May which was 2410 (41.4%) cases followed by 1762 (30.3%) in June and 1643 (28.2%) cases in July. Individuals were vaccinated, and vaccination was associated with a lower risk of hospitalization compared with cases with no doses or only one dose of vaccine. Compared with delta infection, omicron infection was lesser. The Omicron wave was studied between January 2022 and March 2022. Among the 2820 individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the highest number of cases were seen in March which was 1173 (41.5%), followed by 985 (34.9%) cases in February and 662 (23.4%) cases in January. The booster vaccine was started to be administered during this period and reduced equally the risk of symptomatic and asymptomatic infection. Conclusion(s) This descriptive study aids as a baseline study for more studies in the future using the same dataset. Laborious data cleaning is currently in the process to produce more forceful and steadfast results.