Abstract

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SECOND AND THIRD WAVES OF COVID-19: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Anza A. S.*, Shifana S., Arathy R., Shiraz S., Sufiya Sali and Aneeta Toms

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Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the clinical characteristics of patients affected with the second and third waves of COVID-19 admitted to a tertiary care hospital. Method: This was a retrospective observational study, which included 50 patients in the General medicine department of a tertiary care hospital in Trivandrum, India. Result: In our study, the most commonly reported symptom was found to be fever in both delta (84%) and omicron patients (72%). This is followed by cough (60%), dyspnea (56%) and tiredness (52%) in delta cases; sore throat (56%), cough (40%) and dyspnea (24%) in omicron cases. On evaluating the vitals, majority of the cases showed a normal SpO2 level and respiratory rate in both the delta and omicron waves. On assessing the D-dimer values, the delta (28%) and omicron (44%) cases showed a Ddimer of >0.5. In both waves, majority of the cases showed a higher ESR and a positive CRP value. While comparing the CT score of both waves, less pulmonary involvement was observed in omicron patients, hence the omicron variant was less likely to be associated with pneumonia. Conclusion: In this retrospective study of patients with SARS-CoV-2, infection with the delta variant was associated with a higher risk when compared with the omicron variant. The patients who were infected with the omicron variant had a lower disease severity and fewer hospitalization period. Majority of the patients with the omicron variant was vaccinated and hence resulted in milder form of infection.

Keywords: COVID-19, Delta, Omicron, clinical characteristics.