Macrohistory

Every day, for weeks on end, the test positivity rate is exactly 49.11%. Imagine the probability of that happening in real life.

That's the strangest seven-day rolling average of anything I've ever seen. Kinda suggests that somebody somewhere is manipulating the figures.

Wait till you get to the long-term neurological and vascular damage -- that stuff will be just hilarious fun!

Meanwhile, the weekly South African excess deaths report is out, and not looking good (see graph below). Per Worldometers, there were 181 Covid deaths in South Africa yesterday. There were 398 Covid deaths in the UK. So it sure is a good thing that Omicron is so mild, just like a cold. SOURCE: https://www.samrc.ac.za/research-reports

Try comparing it to deaths from the common cold.

Meanwhile, the bodies continue to pile up worldwide: 2,025 deaths in the US 229 deaths in the UK 284 deaths in Germany 223 deaths in Italy 140 deaths in South Africa etc. (Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

He's a clown.

... and a merchant of hopium. He knows what his audience wants, and he supplies it to them -- raking in the dough.

I agree. South Africa has a population close in size to that of the UK, but the highest case number it ever reported during the Omicron wave was c. 37,000. That's many times lower than the highest UK case number of >200,000. Doesn't make sense. Even though SA had been hit by other variants before, it was also under-vaccinated when Omicron came calling. Excess deaths is a much harder figure to massage.

For insight into how Thailand's Omicron deaths might play out in reality, as opposed to fantasy, the South African "weekly excess deaths from natural causes" data are useful to consult (Source: https://www.samrc.ac.za/sites/default/files/files/2022-01-05/weekly1Jan2022.pdf )

Don't look up.

Financial Times ‘No evidence’ that Omicron is less severe than Delta, say Imperial researchers Study warns of elevated reinfection risk but notes ‘very limited’ data on hospitalisations Oliver Barnes and John Burn-Murdoch in London 11 MINUTES AGO There is currently “no evidence” that the Omicron coronavirus is any less severe than the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London, which also highlighted the elevated risk of reinfection posed by Omicron and the need for booster shots to combat it. The research, based on UK infection data, casts doubt on the hopes of some experts that a change in the virulence of the new variant would ease the pressure on health systems despite Omicron’s high levels of infectiousness… https://www.ft.com/content/020534b3-5a54-4517-9fd1-167a5db50786

(Steven J. Frisch): Data out of Denmark today is very troubling, as it seems to indicate a slower onset of symptomatic disease and a much higher frequency of severe illness over time. https://twitter.com/stevenjfrisch/status/1471570226823184398

Severe Omicron cases in Gauteng hospitals on Dec 16. (% change in last 7 days) Oxygenated +92% to 564 ICU (shifted 8 days) +23% to 258 Ventilated (shifted 16 days) +32% to 90 BIG jump in the number of oxygenated from 424 yesterday. https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC

Deaths are a lagging indicator. Meanwhile, below is a new report concerning the sort of thing that SARS-CoV-2 can do even when it doesn't kill. Because Omicron infects far more extensively, many more people will be subject to this kind of risk: Medical XPress DECEMBER 14, 2021 SARS-CoV-2 protein interacts with Parkinson's protein, promotes amyloid formation by American Chemical Society The SARS-CoV-2 N-protein can interact with α-synuclein in the test tube and help it form amyloid fibrils, a hallmark of Parkinson's disease. Credit: Adapted from ACS Chemical Neuroscience 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.1c00666 Case reports of relatively young COVID-19 patients who developed Parkinson's disease within weeks of contracting the virus have led scientists to wonder if there could be a link between the two conditions. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Chemical Neuroscience have shown that, at least in the test tube, the SARS-CoV-2 N-protein interacts with a neuronal protein called α-synuclein and speeds the formation of amyloid fibrils, pathological protein bundles that have been implicated in Parkinson's disease... https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12-sars-cov-protein-interacts-parkinson-amyloid.html

72% of people in Gauteng Province have likely had Covid before, according to seroprevalence analysis. Add to the people who've been sick the people who've been vaccinated and your "in a largely unvaccinated population" remark becomes pointless. For the vast majority of South Africans, if they haven't been vaccinated, they've already contracted Covid before. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/14/south-africa-previous-infections-may-explain-omicron-hospitalisation-rate

Average daily Covid deaths this past week in South Africa: 27. But yesterday, the number of Covid deaths in SA doubled to 54. Source: https://covid-19dashboard.news24.com

The weekly South Africa excess deaths report is out, for the week ending 11 December. Excess deaths increased from 1,726 in the previous week (that's a downward revision) to 1,887. Omicron is a killer. The full report is available here: https://www.samrc.ac.za/sites/default/files/files/2021-12-15/weekly11Dec2021.pdf

Omicron hospitalizations and deaths continue to increase at rapid rates in Gauteng, South Africa (the epicenter). Graphs below are from https://twitter.com/rid1tweets.

The weekly South Africa excess deaths report is out, for the week ending 11 December. Excess deaths increased from 1,726 in the previous week (that's a downward revision) to 1,887. Omicron is a killer. The full report is available here: https://www.samrc.ac.za/sites/default/files/files/2021-12-15/weekly11Dec2021.pdf

Source for graphs: https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC/status/1470845237127905280

Meanwhile, back in the real world (https://twitter.com/SteveMillerOC):

It was only "milder" in places like the UK which has a good vaccination program. Wasn't so mild in India, Indonesia, etc. In other words, the relatively mild outcome in the UK since the summer (if c. 150 deaths per day can be considered mild) is a result of the setting into which the virus was spreading, not properties intrinsic to the virus itself. The same is likely to be true for Omicron.

Yep, looks like Omicron is just like the common cold: (Source: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1469338784051441672)

Absolutely! Just like Delta was mild: (Source: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1469338784051441672)