Israeli hospital reports death of patient with omicron

Israel confirmed its first known death of a patient who was infected with the omicron variant of the coronavirus on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The patient was confirmed by an Israeli hospital on Tuesday and described as a man in his 60s who had preexisting conditions. 

The man had been in the hospital for two weeks before he died on Monday, according to a statement from the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, Israel, on Tuesday. 

“His morbidity stemmed mainly from pre-existing sicknesses and not from respiratory infection arising from the coronavirus,” the Soroka Medical Center explained in a statement.

The patient had reportedly received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Ynet and The Times of Israel, Reuters noted. 

Though researchers are still gathering information about the omicron variant that was first discovered last month in South Africa, some early data appears to show that the variant may be less severe than previous strains. 

A South African study released on Tuesday found that, compared with other COVID-19 cases, there was an 80 percent lower chance of hospitalization for people infected with the omicron variant.

That study, however, has not yet been peer reviewed, and researchers noted that it is unclear to what extent omicron is intrinsically less severe than earlier strains and to what extent the drop is due to more immunity in the population.

Another study conducted by researchers from the University of Hong Kong’s LKS Faculty of Medicine published earlier this year suggested that the variant may be less severe, with the university saying in a statement that the “study also showed that the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity.”

That study is under peer review.

U.S. health officials suggested earlier this week, however, that the the country would be in for a bumpy ride as the omicron variant makes it way around the U.S.

“We are going to see a significant stress in some regions of the country on the hospital system, particularly in those areas where you have a low level of vaccination, which is one of the reasons why we continue to stress the importance of getting those unvaccinated people vaccinated,” President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”