A few weeks ago it was discovered that the incubation time of omicron was shorter than that of other previous variants of the covid. Later, a recent study carried out by researchers from hospitals in Cambridge, Boston and Massachusetts has revealed the time it takes for the body to
The research, which has been published by ‘The New England Journal Of Medicine’, concludes that the time it takes for omicron to disappear is similar to that of delta. Similarly, no obvious differences were observed between vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients in this regard. Likewise, the report also recognizes certain limitations due to the size of the sample used.
Similar results
To find out how long the virus lasts in the body, the study used a longitudinal sample of newly diagnosed coronavirus outpatients. Thus, from July 2021 to January 2022, a total of 66 participants were enrolled: 32 with the delta variant and 34 with omicron. Of all of them, only one did not present symptomatic infection. It should also be noted that the proportion of those vaccinated with the booster dose was 32 points higher in the case of omicron.
Viral breakdown in both variants was similar, as reflected in the results. The mean time from the initial positive PCR assay to culture conversion was four days in the delta y group. Likewise, the mean time from the onset of symptoms to culture conversion was six days and eight days, respectively.
Vaccination statuses and limitations
As the investigators acknowledged, there were no appreciable differences between the different vaccination statuses of the participants: “Although vaccination has been shown to reduce the incidence of infection and disease severity, no large differences were found in the mean duration of viral spread among participants,” they explain.
However, the authors of the study also recognize certain limitations of the same, which cause that this conclusion is not definitive: “Our results must be interpreted in the context of a small sample size, which limits the precision and the possibility of residual confounding in comparisons according to the variant, the vaccination status and the period of time of infection”, they have exposed.