Why would the SA doctor say the omicron is mild, if it isn’t?

[Pipecleaners]

Just that really…

Why would she tell the world’s media that it’s mild if she was exaggerating or whatever else?
She’s also said Boris Johnson’s response verges on ‘hysteria’ and calls for the UK to stay calm.

@Guacamole001 Fair enough, but were they hospitalised?

Levels of vitamin D are surely a factor?

This particular doctor has been saying it's mild from the very beginning, literally days after Omicron started being talked about. Initially it seemed to be based on her experience with a handful of young male patients she'd seen that week. You can't possibly extrapolate from that.

There is of course a political agenda because they don't want South Africa put on red lists and the tourism industry affected again (this is not the first new variant first discovered there after all). Remember what it was like for the UK when the "Kent" variant was discovered and the rest of Europe stopped flights and the French said truck drivers were not allowed to cross the channel?

Covid has always been "mild" to the majority - although medically mild is not necessarily what we think of as a mild illness so the popular idea about it being just a mild cold isn't exactly the full story. With covid, there's also always been cases that were quite "mild" but left people with longer term issues. I know someone who had barely any symptoms other than the loss of taste and smell - but she didn't regain those senses for about 6 months and it was very miserable dealing with that.

It's a numbers game. If with a previous variant 2 people in 1000 needed hospital treatment and with the new variant 2 people in 3000 need hospital treatment (made up figures in this case), if you have 10 times more infections at the same time, that's still a lot more people in hospital.

I suspect just like India never had a huge surge during the early stages of pandemic, SA population has been exposed to more things. But the delta variant hit them badly. So there must be some science behind the steps. (Hopefully!)

Coronavirus: Are Indians more immune to Covid-19? www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-54730290

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.31.20165696v2

I hope the kids who catch it in UK now also go on to develop some immunity.

I would rather wait for the virologists to do their research than listen to one doctor.

Better to be safe than sorry .

Learn from previous mistakes is that not the normal mantra?

There was some data yesterday showing it was 29% milder than the original strain so probably moreso again than delta. So 29% fewer hospital admissions I think was the metric they used.

However if the original variant hospitalised 5 in 100 people this one is effectively still going to hospitalise 4 in 100. So milder but not mild. Children were also 20% more likely to be admitted to hospital with omicron.

We've got the benefit of vaccines but this against the ridiculous transmissibility of omicron means small numbers become big numbers very quickly.

January is not going to be good. This is why the govt are pushing boosters to try and break the chain.

I saw this morning that omicron is about 2.5% cases in the region where I live. So that worked out at about 45 cases in total yesterday. So even with that as a starting point it'll be less than a month until we could infect half the north east at over 1.5 million infections.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out here, obviously south africa are coping so fingers crossed our vaccines hold up the same way their natural immunity is but the exponential growth is worrying!

@Flapjacker48

It's one GP talking about a handful of patients she has been involved with personally. Hardly the evidence to take decisions either way on.

The one i heard on Sky is their equivalent of Prof Whitty, hardly a just a GP.

She says the UK is being hysterical.

As for younger pop. Yes on average about 15years younger than ours but they still have approx 3.6m over 65 and see no increase in hospitalisations in this age group either.

'It's one GP talking about a handful of patients she has been involved with personally. Hardly the evidence to take decisions either way on'

This. She is being completely irresponsible going on numerous telly shows and proclaiming it is mild. Yes, in her limited experience it is but surely she knows evidence and data are not anecdotal.

We can hope it will be mild but as our population is older, fatter and probably generally more unhealthy she should shut up until we have evidence to support her claims. Yes great, say it's looking positive so far but her 'the UK is overreacting it is a mild disease' claims are premature.

the more people who catch, incubate and spread any version of covid, the more times it will mutate and the more risk of a mutation being nastier.Its really silly to say "oh this one is a mild one, lets all catch it.

Chances are it's not as damaging as earlier variants. The problem in the UK is the huge number of obese people who are at a much higher risk of being seriously ill. SA's population is also younger. God forbid there's more lockdowns so people can get even fatter.

So far the Omicron virus seems to be mild but spreads much faster, undoubtedly there will be some serious illnesses, just like influenza is usually mild. I’ve now had 4 vaccinations 3 for Covid 1 for Flu, I’m healthy so I have done all I can to reduce the risk, but I do understand why the government are cautious.

Omicron probably won’t be the last variant of Covid, vaccination and masks are probably the best way of reducing the severity while keeping the economy going. Compulsory vaccination is not desirable but restrictions on those that are not is entirely justified, they are endangering others.

We're not yet sure what the impact on UK population will be,but we do know the SA Dr is well qualified and respected enough to be making her statement.
Why her comments are being undermined is a different topic.

We also know Johnson is scrabbling to retain his position and credibility,so being seen to lead a world beating campaign of vaccinations is paramount to his status right now.
It's known that the main red tops are not adverse in raising mass panic.

I'm more inclined to think that the current fear around Omicron is a designed reaction and'll continue to take advice from people such as Dr Tim Spector and look after myself according.

I'm more inclined to think that the current fear around Omicron is a designed reaction and'll continue to take advice from people such as Dr Tim Spector and look after myself according.

Has Tim Spector said something particularly noteworthy about Omicron?

Younger population and it being summer there are sure to make a difference.

Idk maybe South Africans are on average healthier, less obesity or something - those are just guesses but I suppose every country won’t be the same.

Tim Spector is one of the more alarmist characters though? He’s been screeching about high case numbers since July.

I hate that oaf. However, I think if you are in charge, boosting everyone now is a sensible thing. It can't be a wrong thing. It's probably right to start drip feeding it might get bad.
But it's everywhere literally.

Because in the grand scheme of things, covid-19 IS a mild illness.

Compulsory vaccination is not desirable but restrictions on those that are not is entirely justified, they are endangering others.

What a silly thing to say when we know that vaccinated people can also be infected and spread the virus.

“ When it came to avoiding infection altogether, the study by South Africa's largest private health insurance administrator, Discovery Health, showed that protection against catching COVID-19 had slumped to 33% from 80% previously.”

www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-vaccine-protecting-against-hospitalisation-during-omicron-wave-study-2021-12-14/

We should be pleased that it’s still holding up against hospitalisation - 70% protective against serious illness from that article but we need to stop with the ‘unvaccinated people are a danger to others’ narrative.

I do not understand that if Omicron is such a huge threat to the UK, apparently far worse than the Alpha or Delta variants, we aren't doing more?

ATM we are doing almost nothing to limit spread, so i conclude that the threat is being over blown for political reasons.

The booster takes 2 weeks before it offers good protection.

@PurpleDaisies

I'm more inclined to think that the current fear around Omicron is a designed reaction and'll continue to take advice from people such as Dr Tim Spector and look after myself according.

Has Tim Spector said something particularly noteworthy about Omicron?

Here's one of his videos discussing Omicron

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Younger population and it being summer there are sure to make a difference.

Idk maybe South Africans are on average healthier, less obesity or something - those are just guesses but I suppose every country won’t be the same.

Interesting point, but SA actually has a very major problem with obesity, almost 70% of women and over 30% of men are classed as obese int he country:

See:
data.worldobesity.org/country/south-africa-197/

In addition, although the population is younger than the UK's, nutritionally there are loads of deficits especially since a lot of the population is very poor, and 27% of children are stunted.

www.unicef.org/southafrica/press-releases/slow-violence-malnutrition-south-africa

So this would seem to indicate that S. Africa's population is not the healthy young shiny thing that we often hear bandied about compared to the UK. I would imagine that a largely obese population with rampant malnutrition in its poorest components would be especially hard hit by Covid. So perhaps Omicron is indeed milder than Delta, but who knows at this stage.

@ShiftingSands21

Tim Spector is one of the more alarmist characters though? He’s been screeching about high case numbers since July.

I've never heard Dr Spector screech.

He has often been critical of the Conservatives handling of the pandemic though.

@bumbleymummy You do know that most people in the UK have had 2 shots of AZ, not 2 shots of Pfizer?

Especially people who are older.

[quote Octavia174]@bumbleymummy You do know that most people in the UK have had 2 shots of AZ, not 2 shots of Pfizer?

Especially people who are older.[/quote]
Even more reason to not be saying silly things like ‘restrictions on unvaccinated people are justified because they’re putting others at risk’.

While I think it is entirely possible that the SA experience will be different to the UK experience with this, or any, variant, the ridiculous statements to "prove" this demonstrate why comparing countries is pointless. Also, I have no idea which GP is just "one" doctor - I've seen reports from one of South Africa's biggest health providers (although, privatised so probably skewed towards the healthier end of the population) and some of South Africa's top experts.

SA population might be younger, but fitter/healthier etc is only going to apply to the relatively small percentage of the population who are middle class, dominated by white people. Huge numbers of South Africans live in poverty, in very crowded conditions (that allow Covid to spread quickly) and are relatively unhealthy due to any number of factors such as disease, poor nutrition etc. On that basis, if the omicron variant doesn't seem to be impacting them as severely, it's quite useful information.