This article is a Preprint
Preprints are preliminary research reports that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Preprints posted online allow authors to receive rapid feedback and the entire scientific community can appraise the work for themselves and respond appropriately. Those comments are posted alongside the preprints for anyone to read them and serve as a post publication assessment.
Hospital length of stay in a mixed Omicron and Delta epidemic in New South Wales, Australia
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv
| ID: ppmedrxiv-22271361
ABSTRACT
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.
cc_by
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Type of study:
Experimental_studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Rct
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document type:
Preprint