According to research published on Wednesday by London’s Imperial College, patients with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 have a 40% to 45 percent lower risk of needing to stay in hospital than patients with the Delta variant.

“Overall, we find evidence of a reduction in the risk of hospitalization for Omicron infections relative to Delta infections, averaging across all cases in the study period,” the researchers said of the study, which looked at data from PCR-test confirmed cases in England between December 1 and December 14.