Head of the South African Medical Association says Omicron brings “mild illness”

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/tom-swarbrick/south-africa-top-doc-angelique-coetzee-stresses-omicron-mild/

by ghughes • 5 years ago

21 10 5 years ago

lbc.co.uk

faeriechangling• 5 years ago

Could omicron be the end of the "new normal" that vaccines were unable to give us?

flarg• 5 years ago

Not a great source for HN

mattowen_uk2• 5 years ago

Why not? LBC are an established commercial radio station here in the UK, who try to focus on the 'facts' of the news, and encourage open discussion. Granted a far few of the presenters lack impartiality, but that's easily out weighed but the topics the station covers overall.

mattowen_uk2• 5 years ago

Omicron is the beginning of Covid-19 becoming a 'mature' virus; it doesn't kill (most) of it's hosts and it spreads quickly. This is the aim of any would be successful virus.

I forsee a future where only the vunerable need a dual Flu and Covid shot once a year, and the rest of us just take a week off work and watch Netflix if we get sick.

thomasmg3• 5 years ago

Hospitalization, and death rate, are both growing in South Africa. The case rate isn't decreasing either. Test positivity rate was 60% in the last 24 hours, according to https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covi...

So those statements from Dr Coetzee don't seem to be based on actual data. They might be politically motivated, to get rid of the travel ban? Yes, the travel ban is probably useless now, as Omicron is already the majority of cases in e.g. London. But that's a different story.

bart_spoon3• 5 years ago

Unfortunately the website you linked is falling over, but I haven’t seen anything indicating the death rate is increasing. The number of hospitalizations is rising, but it’s also been reported that 80% of hospitalizations are “incidental”, meaning the person went to the hospital for something unrelated to Covid and only was discovered to be infected after being tested upon admission, which is in line with more mild disease. Test positivity isn’t a measure of severity, just contagiousness. Also, as mentioned in the article, the case date has already peaked in SA and is now falling.

So far the little data available indicates it’s likely highly contagious, even compared to earlier strains, and is possibly less severe.

thomasmg3• 5 years ago

the website you linked is falling over

I'm sorry about that... It works for me still. You might want to use https://web.archive.org/

I haven’t seen anything indicating the death rate is increasing

I made a statistic myself, using the data provided there, looking at the "Daily Hospital Surveillance (DATCOV) Report" and then "Died". From the historical data listed there, I got the "Died" number for every second day, and took the average of 7. From December 11 to November 25, for every 2nd day, this is 61, 46, 42, 32, 32, 27, 26, 25, 25. So, 61 is the average of the last 14 days, and so on.

Update: I did some more analysis, and found that the "oxygenated" decreased from Nov 1 to Nov 19, and then increased since then. And "ventilated" decreased since as well, and now increased, but yes, not as high! So this would indicate that in fact, Omicron needs less ventilation. And death rate seems to be a function of ventilated and oxygenated.

it’s also been reported that 80% of hospitalizations are “incidental”

OK... so yes death could also be incidental, as well as the increase in oxygenated... Yes, it could be. But what would be the explanation for this "incidental" increase? Some other infection? Remember it is summer in South Africa.

I'm not saying I know the answer, but if the data doesn't match what somebody is saying, then you have to ask yourself what is the explanation.

Test positivity isn’t a measure of severity

No. But according to the article, "Dr Coetzee said that ..., but added that after one month the case rate in South Africa is already decreasing." With such a high test positivity rate, how can someone say "case rate is decreasing"? On the published data, I don't see any evidence that the case rate is decreasing: the numbers are very high, and likely the limit on the number of tests that can be performed have been reached. The WHO target number for test positivity rate is 5% I think. In a wave it is often higher than that, sure.

So far the little data available indicates it’s likely highly contagious, even compared to earlier strains

I agree.

is possibly less severe

Dr Coetzee said "the severity of the disease is mild". Of course there are multiple interpretations of that: it is less severe on average than the Delta variant. Or it could mean: it is like a common cold. It is not clear what Dr Coetzee meant here.

Head of the South African Medical Association says Omicron brings “mild illness”

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