Epidemiological characteristics and hospitalization service utilization during pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in China′s neighboring countries

  Objective  To analyze epidemiological characteristics of coronavirus disease – 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant and hospitalization service utilization during the Omicron pandemic in China's neighboring countries including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Russia.

  Methods  Sourcing data from Our World in Data website, we compared vaccination rate, COVID-19 infection rate, case fatality rate and hospitalization rate before and during the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in the 10 countries neighboring China.

  Results  Among the neighboring countries, the COVID-19 vaccination rate was higher but the case fatality rate of COVID-19 was lower for the developed countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore with relatively higher average age of the population; in contrast, the vaccination rate was lower and the case fatality rate was higher in Pakistan, India and Indonesia. South Korea had the lowest median stringency index during the Omicron pandemic in the 10 neighboring countries, followed by Vietnam, Singapore, Russia, and India. For all the 10 countries, the COVID-19 case fatality rates were significantly lower during the Omicron pandemic than those during previous pandemic (P < 0.001), with all the case fatality rates of less than 0.8%. Only in South Korea and Japan, the number of COVID-19 deaths during Omicron pandemic accounted for more than 50% of total deaths due to COVID-19 pandemic. For the countries including Japan, South Korea and Malaysia with hospitalization data available, the proportion of COVID-19 cases admitted to intensive care units was significantly lower during Omicron pandemic than that during previous pandemic (P < 0.001).

  Conclusion  The application of digital technology in monitoring and early warning of COVID-19 should be promoted and the coverage rate of COVID-19 vaccination needs to be increased continuously for rapid and effective response to Omicron pandemic.