Beta (South Africa) variant may increase risk for COVID-19 hospitalization and death, large-scale South African study suggests

A new observational study being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and published in The Lancet Global Health, suggests that the Beta variant of SARS-CoV-2, first detected in South Africa, is linked with an increased risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19.