GroveHillWanderer

According to the South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla, in an article published just today, it's simply a consequence of the increased infections. The same article also characterises him as saying that: South Africa sees positive signs amid omicron wave Also, a Reuters article yesterday about the findings in a report from Tshwane, South Africa says the following: Severe illness in S. Africa's Omicron outbreak lower than past waves Although the report also cautions that, "It may take a few weeks for hospitalisation outcomes to accumulate."

According to reports I've seen from various sources including Thai PBS World, they were translators working for a religious organization, attending a church meeting in Lagos. 2 more Omicron cases detected in Thailand

Not necessarily, as your very next paragraph points out. Many (if not most) of them were not being admitted because of Covid and it was only discovered on admission that they had Covid, precisely because the infections they had were mild or even asymptomatic.

All the people in the party who tested positive (70 of them) were fully vaccinated - I'm not sure the same has been confirmed for the other 50 people in the same hotel (but not in the party) who also caught it. But in any event, all the evidence I've seen so far is that whether vaccinated or not, there have been no serious illnesses or deaths confirmed from Omicron infections. This may change - as more and more people get Omicron there will almost certainly be some serious cases and deaths, especially in older folks with comorbidities but again, and from what I see, I think there's still reason to at least hope that Omicron is going to be milder than previous variants.

Yes, and for me with my rose-coloured glasses, the take away from that briefing is that there is still only evidence of mild disease with Omicron. And although that could change, I still prefer to take a more optimistic outlook. For instance, there's another story from Norway where 120 people got Covid in a hotel where an early Christmas party was being held on November 26. Not all of them are definitely confirmed as being Omicron cases yet but that is the working assumption. As stated by Norwegian health authorities, all cases were mild or asymptomatic. Europe's biggest Omicron outbreak appears mild

No vaccine has ever had long term side effects and there's no scientific rationale for thinking mRNA vaccines will be any different. As one epidemiologist put it: Things to know about the long term side effects of Covid vaccines

That info is from nearly two weeks ago. Here's part of what they said in their latest update. WHO Covid weekly update Dec 7, 2021 It may still be too early to be sure but I have not seen any reports of Omicron causing severe illness or death, from anywhere in the world as yet. Perhaps I'm just a hopeless optimist, but as far as I can tell, the evidence (albeit limited) continues to be encouraging on this front.

So the obvious implication is that they now have tests that can.

The question I was answering was not why does it need to be altered, but how could it be altered while retaining accuracy. But since you've asked, the reason it needed to be altered is because it implied that people could have the Omicron variant simply by virtue of being African, which is patently ridiculous. In any event, I see that the headline has already been changed to a more accurate one - "PM orders travellers from Omicron areas to be traced and tested."

The other point to be made is that it's probably a little bit pointless to be over-concentrating on African countries when at least three European countries have already stated that they had cases of omicron from before South Africa ever announced that the variant was present there. As other countries go back and retest old samples, I reckon there's a good chance we'll find out it was already present in plenty of them as well. Don't forget, people weren't testing for omicron before, because they didn't know it existed.

It could incredibly easily be altered and retain accuracy. You just have to look at the headline from two days ago which referred to "arrivals from African countries." In fact that would be a better headline because obviously it's not their nationality that's the issue here, it's where they've travelled from. People don't just spontaneously develop the omicron variant because they're African.

According to the WHO they skipped Nu because it was too easy to confuse with "new" and Xi because it is a common surname and the guidelines are to avoid using the names of people or countries. Mu (which comes before Nu, not after) was not skipped, it was already assigned to another variant detected in Colombia.

That doesn't actually provide much, if any perspective about the virulence of the omicron variant since there's no evidence these severe cases are due to omicron. That report quotes Dr Rudo Mathivha, head of intensive care at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto. However, as the article below states: Young people bearing brunt of Covid-19 resurgence, ICU doctor warns

The person I was replying to said such batteries were unlikely "in the foreseeable future." 3-5 years is definitely foreseeable - and as the article points out, they are already available, just not very widely yet.

If you read the article, that point is dealt with. It explains that scientists have developed a methodology that allows batteries to charge super fast, "but avoids the damage to the battery usually caused by heat."

I think you'd probably have to look at each case individually to be sure, some might have compromised immune systems that wouldn't produce antibodies with the vaccine either. However one explanation that's been given is that many of these people had a relatively low viral load and their body's innate immune system was sufficient to fight off the infection without the need to produce antigen-specific antibodies. A vaccine is much, much more likely to generate antibodies because it delivers a massive dose of virus-like particles (VLP's) that has been carefully calculated to elicit the optimum immune response while not causing unacceptable systemic side effects (fever, inflammation etc). It's also what the phase 1 and 2 clinical trials the the vaccines have undergone, have shown to be the case - they have established that the vaccine reliably produces a robust immune response, in the overwhelming majority of people. If they didn't, they would not have gone on to phase 3 trials. Just to give some numbers, it has been estimated that it is possible to get a CoVid-19 infection from as low an exposure as 1 - 3,000 viral particles. On the other hand, each dose of vaccine contains literally billions of VLP's (the AZ vaccine has 50 billion in a full dose). Dose of coronavirus for infection AstraZeneca phase 3 interim data So while a relatively mild infection may not be enough to stimulate antibody production, a vaccine almost certainly will because that's what it was specifically designed to do.

Not so. EV batteries that can charge in 5 minutes have already been produced. They do require higher powered charging devices than used currently - but the batteries themselves are already here. Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

She is pushing back about the travel restrictions but she is also stressing how mild the symptoms are in all patients at this point and that it isn't just in a small number of her own patients, but in all the doctors she's spoken to. She does allow that things might change, however. If we want to get the fuller context, we have to look at all the available information, not just the one interview where she talked about only a smaller number of younger patients.

If you watch this interview with her on a S. African news channel, I'm not so sure it is being taken that much out of context. She points out that it wasn't just in her patients that it was mild, it was the same with all of her colleagues (and she's the chair of the SA Medical Association, so she has a lot of colleagues). She makes it clear that although the picture could change going forward, at this point as far as she's concerned, foreign governments are massively over-reacting. https://youtu.be/zIzWtcrjPaY

What a straw man argument. The comparison with polio that was being made, was that getting vaccinated against it would very probably save you from a life changing illness. Which is a perfectly true and valid comparison.

It didn't "mix" with the HIV virus - it's just that when someone has HIV, their immune system doesn't work properly and variants typically arise in people who can't fight off infection, giving the virus plenty of time to accumulate genetic changes, as explained in the article below. Virus Variants Likely Evolved Inside People With Weak Immune Systems Also, according to the doctor that first notified authorities about the omicron variant, it may not actually be that scary. She says it only appears to cause mild symptoms, even in the unvaccinated. South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’

You don't understand how surveys (or statistics) work, do you? You don't have to survey everybody (or even a majority of people) to get an accurate result. As stated in the article below: Survey Statistical Confidence: How Many is Enough?

Not according to the most typically-used meaning of the word. The WHO says that: Immunization is the process wherein a person is made immune or resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of a vaccine. Certainly, for the purposes of travel in Thailand, if you've not been vaccinated you're not considered to be immunized. Also, scientifically it's not at all clear that a previous infection confers immunity. It depends on a number of different factors, including the severity of the illness you experienced. As the article below states: Natural immunity vs vaccination

It's less than half the price that it costs in the US. On the other hand, some low income countries are getting it for as little as $12 per patient. How Merck is pricing molnupiravir

That article is incorrect. The press release from Pfizer says it will sub-licence the drug to low and lower-middle income countries and as the TNA article linked to in the OP states, Thailand is classed as a higher-middle income country.