--- title: Delta Variant Leads to a Higher Risk of Being Hospitalized description: The Delta variant of COVID-19 leads to a higher risk of being hospitalized than the Alpha variant, according to a Lancet study. canonical: https://time.com/6093422/delta-hospitalization-risk/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-08-27T22:30:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:15:47.564Z article:section: Health og:title: Study: The Delta Variant Leads to a Higher Risk of Being Hospitalized og:description: Compared to the Alpha variant of COVID-19 og:url: https://time.com/6093422/delta-hospitalization-risk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccf58ab6a31c7942/698a1c5922fb859acee2c7ae/covid-hospitalizations-UK.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: COVID-19-hospitalizations-UK og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Study: The Delta Variant Leads to a Higher Risk of Being Hospitalized twitter:description: Compared to the Alpha variant of COVID-19 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccf58ab6a31c7942/698a1c5922fb859acee2c7ae/covid-hospitalizations-UK.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Delta Variant Increases Your Chances of Being Hospitalized With COVID-19, Study Finds > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 27, 2021 10:30 PM UTC  Firefighters work alongside critical care nurses in the ICU at Queen Alexandra Hospital in southern England on March 23, 2021. Firefighters work alongside critical care nurses in the ICU at Queen Alexandra Hospital in southern England on March 23, 2021.Adrian Dennis/AFP—Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 27, 2021 10:30 PM UTC It’s clear that the Delta variant is more contagious than previous COVID-19 strains, as evidenced by the [soaring case counts in the U.S.](https://time.com/6090218/fourth-wave-surpassed-third-in-some-states/) and around the world. But the big question has been whether it causes more severe disease than earlier versions of the virus that causes COVID-19. [A peer-reviewed study](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2821%2900475-8/fulltext?utm%5Fcampaign=tlpr&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsmi=153315332&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-8ed-xs%5FLWygKcEvEXgnV7Iqg4fnEtm77nUhc2%5FDK91CcbLQw0S3V0w-xqBh04IgmgHUUfL62GSbcqRPQXOg2XV8zdUhg&utm%5Fcontent=153315332&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) published Friday in _The Lancet Infectious Diseases_ suggests it can. According to the paper, people in England who got infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than those who got infected with the Alpha variant. The vast majority of the more than 43,000 COVID-positive people in the study were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Relatively few of those 43,000 individuals—about one in 50, overall—were admitted to the hospital within two weeks of their first positive test, but infection with the Delta variant seemed to roughly double their chances after accounting for age and other risk factors. That finding tracks with previous research completed in Scotland and [published](https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140-6736%2821%2901358-1) in _The Lancet_ in June. Infection with the Delta variant also raised someone’s chances of seeking emergency care, even if they were not ultimately admitted to the hospital, according to the new study. A little more than 4% of people who tested positive for the Alpha variant were admitted to the hospital or sought care in the emergency department within two weeks of their first positive test, compared to almost 6% of those infected by the Delta strain. The study analyzed U.K. hospital data from late March through late May 2021\. In March, infections from the Alpha variant, which first emerged in the U.K. last year, outnumbered Delta cases. During the weeks at the end of the study period, the opposite was true. The study had a few limitations. The authors didn’t have access to data on underlying conditions, which are a known risk factor for more severe cases of COVID-19; they did, however, analyze patients’ ages, genders, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses and travel histories. It’s also hard to control for personal factors that might make someone more or less likely to seek health care, such as individual risk tolerance or cultural norms. And, though the researchers tried to analyze only people who came to the hospital because of COVID-19, it’s possible that a small number of individuals were admitted for another reason and happened to test positive during routine screening. Finally, less than 2% of people in the study were fully vaccinated—a sample size too small to assess whether Delta also raises hospitalization risk among vaccinated people, the researchers wrote. If anything, that underscores the benefits of vaccination: so few immunized people tested positive for the virus, they barely showed up in the study population. Already in the U.S., Delta seems to be changing some people’s views of the pandemic. It has led to [sobering spikes in pediatric hospitalizations](https://time.com/6092446/pediatric-covid-19-surge/)—a wakeup call for many parents—and prompted some lawmakers to reimplement indoor mask mandates. It also seems to be [inspiring people to get vaccinated](https://time.com/6088769/covid-19-vaccinations-rising-fourth-wave/) in areas where it is spreading most. By illustrating how risky Delta can be to unvaccinated populations, the new research may keep that momentum going. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6093422/delta-hospitalization-risk/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6093422/delta-hospitalization-risk/"},"headline":"The Delta Variant Increases Your Chances of Being Hospitalized With COVID-19, Study Finds","datePublished":"2021-08-27T22:30:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T10:15:47.564Z","description":"The Delta variant of COVID-19 leads to a higher risk of being hospitalized than the Alpha variant, according to a Lancet study.","url":"https://time.com/6093422/delta-hospitalization-risk/","keywords":["COVID-19","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccf58ab6a31c7942/698a1c5922fb859acee2c7ae/covid-hospitalizations-UK.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccf58ab6a31c7942/698a1c5922fb859acee2c7ae/covid-hospitalizations-UK.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"COVID-19-hospitalizations-UK","caption":"Covid-19-hospitalizations-UK","creditText":"Adrian Dennis/AFP—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6093422/delta-hospitalization-risk/","name":"The Delta Variant Increases Your Chances of Being Hospitalized With COVID-19, Study Finds"}}]}] ```