Reports from South Africa that omicron is disproportionately effecting under 5s

[Notsomerryandbright]

I can’t see another thread title discussing this but I’ve just read that Health Officials in South Africa have reported they’ve had a disproportionate number of under 5s admitted into hospital with covid over the last 2 weeks, 29% classified as having severe infection.

I’m not trying to cause panic etc but this really worries me. Just wanted to start a thread in hope someone more knowledgeable will come along and make it seem less scary than the figures suggest.

www.news.com.au/world/africa/south-african-government-medical-adviser-reveals-how-omicron-is-hitting-under5s/news-story/995e5cb71b3e8d7d4ae159f92549b8d0

@neveradullmoment99 that is depressing!!

I know🥺😥

However it doesn't say the efficacy of vaccination, or severity of disease, so hope that is good news👍

They are testing this variant right now against current vaccinations. They will also be in constant communication re. the data coming out of South Africa. They’ll have much for information for people in the next two weeks and if they genuinely believe that children are at risk they’ll be a press conference telling people to get their kids vaccinated. Worrying and fretting before we have the data is pointless.

@neveradullmoment99

I never said that Omicron isn't a concern. All I said was that it is too early to say exactly how serious this is going to be for children. South Africa is a very different country to UK and there are many variables that can affect child/adult hospitalization rates. Its too early to say.

No @julieca, when they way “more likely to become reinfected” they don’t mean “more than those who haven’t been infected”, they mean “more than in previous waves/with previous variants”. The wording is a bit unclear unfortunately.

It isn't saying you're more likely to catch omicron if you've had covid or a vaccination. It's that you're more likely to be reinfected with omicron than you were with any previous variant.

I saw this happening. Just to force us all to vaccinate our kids.

@JanglyBeads yes i realised that

We need to take a deep breath and wait for the scientists to do what they need to do to find who and how badly people are affected. And stop jumping at every little bit of news, however unreliable. Remember, journalists report what they need to to get your attention!

Until then, I suggest we take the precautions we can e.g. wearing masks, washing hands etc.

Absolutely fascinating. No real reason to vaccinate under 5s before now because it doesn't really effect them and because they've been busy vaccinating everyone else. Now under 5s are the only ones left, this new strain has appeared and is suddenly super dangerous to them. What an incredible coincidence! There are some people out there getting very rich from all this hype. 🙄 absolutely sick to my back teeth of it.

[quote Prescottdanni123]@neveradullmoment99

I never said that Omicron isn't a concern. All I said was that it is too early to say exactly how serious this is going to be for children. South Africa is a very different country to UK and there are many variables that can affect child/adult hospitalization rates. Its too early to say.[/quote]
I didn't think you weren't concerned.
It is too early to say👍

@ComeAllYeFaithful

I saw this happening. Just to force us all to vaccinate our kids.

Does seem a bit convenient but do you not trust the whole world?

A massive world wide conspiracy?
I don't buy that.

Do we have a CFR or hospitalisation rate by strain for children in the U.K.?

Given that with the original European strain last March there was lots of stuff about how children are usually asymptomatic and don’t transmit covid as readily as it can absolutely be true that alpha affects children more than wild type and delta affects children more than alpha while still remaining a fairly minor illness for most children.

It does seem like covid spreads round classrooms a lot better than anything that was circulating before the end of last year and anecdotally I seem to know of a lot more symptomatic children and more children who are still ill weeks after getting covid now than before.

Good points about the general health of their under 5s, I’d imagine that would be dramatically different because of our health services etc over here.

Our health service is not fit for purpose.

It's actually staggering how little some people seem.to care about kids. People who want to try and do something to protect them are 'panicking' and 'scaremongering'
Bet we're all going to take up the booster though

This

@Alltheblue

Good points about the general health of their under 5s, I’d imagine that would be dramatically different because of our health services etc over here.

Our health service is not fit for purpose.

Important to remember this will be a mixed picture, as there is presumably lower obesity and potentially higher fitness, lower asthma/allergies? No idea but UK is not a paragon of healthiness.

The first thread I saw on MN about covid 19 ended up being taken down for scaremongering by MN wow, that's a bad look.

rhuth South Africa has a major obesity issue. 28% of adults. Not far behind the UK at 31%.

Thats how virus' work though. There only aim is to find a new host and replicate. Every single time the virus replicates there's a chance of something not copying 100% and it creates a mutation.

There's nothing suspicious about it, it's nature, bad luck on our part and poor vaccine uptake in other parts of the world that allow the virus more opportunities to mutate.

@MaxNormal

rhuth South Africa has a major obesity issue. 28% of adults. Not far behind the UK at 31%.

Thank you, I did not know this.

@Buttermaflooby

Absolutely fascinating. No real reason to vaccinate under 5s before now because it doesn't really effect them and because they've been busy vaccinating everyone else. Now under 5s are the only ones left, this new strain has appeared and is suddenly super dangerous to them. What an incredible coincidence! There are some people out there getting very rich from all this hype. 🙄 absolutely sick to my back teeth of it.

How on earth do you imagine that would work?

There are some people seeing conspiracy theories in everything.

@Alltheblue

Good points about the general health of their under 5s, I’d imagine that would be dramatically different because of our health services etc over here.

Our health service is not fit for purpose.

We don't have to pay. That is a massive benefit.

The evidence about hospitalisation of children is very worrying. However I read the telegraph article that someone posted earlier and it said:

We now have 37 [mostly unvaccinated] pregnant women [in the hospital with Covid-19 infections], and 22 of them are symptomatic.

That means 15 of the women hospitalised had no symptoms. I appreciate that is about pregnant women rather than children, but it could be that some/many of the children are being admitted as a precaution rather than because they need to be there?

Or am I just clutching at straws- I don’t know??