Hospital length of stay in a mixed Omicron and Delta epidemic in New South Wales, Australia

AimTo 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). BackgroundThe 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. ResultsUsing 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. ConclusionsHospital length of stay was substantially reduced across all clinical pathways during a mixed Omicron-Delta epidemic compared to a prior Delta epidemic. These changes in length of stay have contributed to lessened health system burden despite greatly increased infection burden and should be considered in future planning of response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia and internationally.

Learnings from the Australian First Few X Household Transmission Project for COVID-19

BackgroundFirst Few "X" (FFX) studies provide a platform to collect the required epidemiological, clinical and virological data to help address emerging information needs about the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsWe adapted the WHO FFX protocol for COVID-19 to understand severity and household transmission dynamics in the early stages of the pandemic in Australia. Implementation strategies were developed for participating sites; all household members provided baseline epidemiological data and were followed for 14 days from case identification. Household contacts completed symptom diaries and had respiratory swabs taken at baseline, day 7 and day 14, and day 28 where applicable. We modelled the spread of COVID-19 within households using a susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered-type model, and calculated the household secondary attack rate and key epidemiological parameters. Findings96 households with 101 cases and 286 household contacts were recruited into the study between April-October 2020. Forty household contacts tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the study follow-up period. Our model estimated the household secondary attack rate to be 15% (95% CI 8-25%), which scaled up with increasing household size. Children were less infectious than their adult counterparts but were also more susceptible to infection. InterpretationOur study provides important baseline data characterising the transmission of early SARS-CoV-2 strains from children and adults in Australia, against which properties of variants of concern can be benchmarked. We encountered many challenges with respect to logistics, ethics, governance and data management that may have led to biases in our study. Continued efforts to invest in preparedness research will help to test, refine and further develop Australian FFX study protocols in advance of future outbreaks. FundingAustralian Government Department of Health Research in contextO_ST_ABSEvidence before this studyC_ST_ABSThe emergence of SARS-CoV-2 was initially characterised by uncertainty over key epidemiological, clinical and virological characteristics of the pathogen. We conducted a prospective household transmission study of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and their household contacts to collect data to understand severity and household transmission dynamics in Australia and add to the emerging evidence base for decision making. Large systematic reviews and meta-analyses of severity and transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in households have since been published, although estimates vary by setting. Added value of this studyThis is the first multi-jurisdictional prospective household transmission study of its kind for SARS-CoV-2 in Australia. Australia experienced low epidemic activity during the study period in 2020 due to robust public health and social measures including extensive PCR testing of symptomatic persons and isolation of all known contacts of confirmed cases. Hence, we describe the transmission dynamics in our cohort, i.e. in a low incidence setting and provide estimates of the household secondary attack rate, the relative susceptibility of children compared to adults, and transmission from children compared to adults. Implications of all the available evidenceOur findings describe the epidemiology of COVID-19 in Australian households in 2020, and demonstrate the effectiveness of public health measures to limit transmission in this setting. Comparisons to other household transmission studies must be interpreted in light of the local epidemiology and context including study design, and sampling methods. Additional research is needed to incorporate genomic and serological data to further study transmission dynamics in our cohort. Continued development of the FFX study platform in Australia will enable integration into surveillance systems and help inform targetted public health responses to future infectious disease emergencies.