Serious concern’ as South Africa detects new coronavirus variant--Omicron

[Virt]

10 minutes ago, Scott said:

The link you shared some time back was intriguing.  I used it and the information in it, to help a covid-minimizing relative understand a little how all this works and how because something doesn't happen in one place doesn't mean it won't happen in another. 

 

I think one of the big takeaways from the SARS epidemic is that for one reason or another people of Asian descent were at greater risk of infection.  

Seems like south asians are at a higher risk this time too

This one from last month.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59165157

[codemonkey]

“The Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus could lead to more infections among vaccinated people, according to several scientists,” - WSJ

Omicron Risks Infecting Vaccinated People but May Not Cause Them Severe Illness

Some scientists say the virus will likely remain vulnerable to immune cells; ‘Don’t freak out,’ says BioNTech co-founder

 

All omicron variant infections identified to date in the US (total of 2-MN/CA) have been in fully vaccinated people, one with travel history to SA from CA, and the MN case was a person who had traveled to NYC.

Edited December 2, 2021 by codemonkey

[Jeffr2]

Hospitalizations are up dramatically also.  As these tend to lag, along with deaths.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safricas-health-body-sees-threefold-higher-risk-reinfection-omicron-2021-12-02/

S.Africa's health body sees threefold higher risk of reinfection from Omicron

South Africa had been seeing a sudden spike in daily reported cases of coronavirus with the government reporting 11,535 new infections on Thursday, up from 312 ten days ago.

[codemonkey]

6 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

S.Africa's health body sees threefold higher risk of reinfection from Omicron

So far, everything I have read about omicron is that although it may spread very easily, symptoms reported have been quite mild in infected people.

[Jeffr2]

6 minutes ago, codemonkey said:

So far, everything I have read about omicron is that although it may spread very easily, symptoms reported have been quite mild in infected people.

True. But it's also only been reported for a small number of people who are mostly young and vaccinated. The devil is in the details, not the headlines.

[codemonkey]

14 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

True. But it's also only been reported for a small number of people who are mostly young and vaccinated. The devil is in the details, not the headlines.

Virus's are clever in their evolutionary strategy in that they want to infect as many people as possible but not kill them. Hopefully the scientists and T-cells collaborate, are more clever than the virus and can hold the line to stop covid.

[Jeffr2]

5 minutes ago, codemonkey said:

Virus's are clever in their evolutionary strategy in that they want to infect as many people as possible but not kill them. Hopefully the scientists and T-cells collaborate, are more clever than the virus and can hold the line to stop covid.

You are aware cases and hospitalizations are skyrocketing in SA? So much for holding the line....

[codemonkey]

2 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

You are aware cases and hospitalizations are skyrocketing in SA? So much for holding the line....

I see increases (18 fold/1750%) in SA covid infections from omicron day (Nov09 1st case?), but not skyrocketing hospitalizations, unless the data is lagging.

new cases/million (7 day rolling av.)

weekly new hospital admissions/million (reL to PoP.)

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by codemonkey

[Jeffr2]

6 minutes ago, codemonkey said:

I see increases in SA covid infections, but not skyrocketing hospitalizations, unless the data is lagging.

new cases/million (7 day rolling av.)

weekly new hospital admissions/million (reL to PoP.)

 

The data is lagging. As has happeared in previous waves.

[Bkk Brian]

4 minutes ago, codemonkey said:

I see increases in SA covid infections, but not skyrocketing hospitalizations, unless the data is lagging.

new cases/million (7 day rolling av.)

weekly new hospital admissions/million (reL to PoP.)

 

To go to direct source to the rise in hospitalizations you can go here https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/

 

Also as posted by @Jeffr2 earlier

 

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1466480113487392769

 

NEW: today’s update from Gauteng, now on a log scale to better show current trajectories. Steepness of lines shows how much faster the growth in cases and positivity is now vs past waves, and hospital admissions are now steepening too as the acceleration in cases feeds through.

[Jeffr2]

16) Delayed hospitalization reporting…

???? OBJECTS IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR MAY APPEAR SMALLER THAN THEY ARE!!! ????

⚠️Bottomline hospitalizations are surging. Almost 10x rise in 2 weeks!
https://t.co/WKJzK1etXM

[Jeffr2]

Zimbabwe COVID update: 1,042 new cases, up from just 27 last week

- New cases: 1,042
- Average: 372 (+145)
- Positivity rate: 12.6% (+1)
- In hospital: 80 (+28)
- In ICU: 3 (-)
- New deaths: 0
- Average: 0 (-)

[codemonkey]

35 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

⚠️Bottomline hospitalizations are surging. Almost 10x rise in 2 weeks!

I don't see a 10 fold increase in hospitalizations from the twitter graph and the SA website data does not show that increase for week 48, or any other reporting periods, (W48 ends on Dec5th).

Infection cases have increased sharpy but not hospitalizations.

Omicron, has become controversial and interesting as scientists are currently very interested in its origin and are investigating some theories as to its origin to help with their intervention and mitigation steps.

[Jeffr2]

3 minutes ago, codemonkey said:

I don't see a 10 fold increase in hospitalizations from the twitter graph and the SA website data does not show that increase for week 48, or any other reporting periods, (W48 ends on Dec5th).

Infection cases have increased sharpy but not hospitalizations.

Omicron, has become controversial and interesting as scientists are currently very interested in its origin and are investigating some theories as to its origin to help with their intervention and mitigation steps.

From my link. You should read the details.

 

South Africa’s weekly hospital admission counts are back-filled every day as new patient data comes in, so the figure for the week ending Nov 28 has been rising in recent days, from 580 in the data published on the 29th, to 788 in today’s report.

[Bkk Brian]

8 minutes ago, codemonkey said:

I don't see a 10 fold increase in hospitalizations from the twitter graph and the SA website data does not show that increase for week 48, or any other reporting periods, (W48 ends on Dec5th).

Infection cases have increased sharpy but not hospitalizations.

Omicron, has become controversial and interesting as scientists are currently very interested in its origin and are investigating some theories as to its origin to help with their intervention and mitigation steps.

Now go to Gauteng province the epicenter. 400% rise since Nov. Its not affected the whole of SA just yet

[Virt]

This guy has some interesting tweets and don't think omicron came from an immunocompromised patient.

 

He also links to some data where the lineage leads back to 2020.

 

Interesting thoughts no matter where it started 

 

 

[Jeffr2]

8 hours ago, Virt said:

This guy has some interesting tweets and don't think omicron came from an immunocompromised patient.

 

He also links to some data where the lineage leads back to 2020.

 

Interesting thoughts no matter where it started 

 

 

Can't open that link.

[rabas]

9 hours ago, Virt said:

This guy has some interesting tweets and don't think omicron came from an immunocompromised patient.

 

He also links to some data where the lineage leads back to 2020.

 

Interesting thoughts no matter where it started 

 

 

This Science article Where did ‘weird’ Omicron come from?  suggests Anderson may be part way out on a limb.  The general lean seems to be towards a chronic infection in an immunocompromised patient. Although how it came about is clearly unknown at present.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by rabas

[Virt]

4 hours ago, rabas said:

This Science article Where did ‘weird’ Omicron come from?  suggests Anderson may be part way out on a limb.  The general lean seems to be towards a chronic infection in an immunocompromised patient. Although how it came about is clearly unknown at present.

 

 

Yeah it's all speculation at this point, but here is another chart.

 

https://twitter.com/martjm/status/1465827091094638601/photo/1

 

If i understand this chart correct the mutation seems to be more related to the original strain and is it not unlikely it would have gone under the radar for so long if present in humans?

 

I don't think the idea is so far fetched, but of course it's just speculation at this time.

[Jeffr2]

9 minutes ago, Virt said:

Yeah it's all speculation at this point, but here is another chart.

 

https://twitter.com/martjm/status/1465827091094638601/photo/1

 

If i understand this chart correct the mutation seems to be more related to the original strain and is it not unlikely it would have gone under the radar for so long if present in humans?

 

I don't think the idea is so far fetched, but of course it's just speculation at this time.

50 mutations, 30 in the spike alone.  A cause for concern.

[Virt]

6 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

50 mutations, 30 in the spike alone.  A cause for concern.

Thankfully none died so far with omicron, but it seems like the young children are hospitalized more with this mutation, which is not that great news.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Virt]

On 12/3/2021 at 12:21 AM, Jeffr2 said:

Hospitalizations are up dramatically also.  As these tend to lag, along with deaths.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safricas-health-body-sees-threefold-higher-risk-reinfection-omicron-2021-12-02/

S.Africa's health body sees threefold higher risk of reinfection from Omicron

South Africa had been seeing a sudden spike in daily reported cases of coronavirus with the government reporting 11,535 new infections on Thursday, up from 312 ten days ago.

Some of the spike could be explained by the massive increase in testing.

 

Just like here in Denmark.

We had an large increase of positive cases the last month, but we're testing almost 200,000 PCR tests daily in a 5.8 mill population. Plus the quickests.

 

Imagine if Thailand tested as many as Denmark.

That would mean they had to use approx 2.5 mill PCR tests, plus millions of quick tests.

Each day....

 

I'm pretty sure the number of positives would go through the roof if they did that.

[codemonkey]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/botswanas-health-director-says-majority-of-omicron-variant-cases-were-asymptomatic/ar-AARnyCG

 

Hope it stays this way, and not progress to more serious iterations before covid can become more manageable.

Edited December 4, 2021 by codemonkey

[Bkk Brian]

5 hours ago, Virt said:

Some of the spike could be explained by the massive increase in testing.

 

Just like here in Denmark.

We had an large increase of positive cases the last month, but we're testing almost 200,000 PCR tests daily in a 5.8 mill population. Plus the quickests.

 

Imagine if Thailand tested as many as Denmark.

That would mean they had to use approx 2.5 mill PCR tests, plus millions of quick tests.

Each day....

 

I'm pretty sure the number of positives would go through the roof if they did that.

Tests are going up daily in SA. For example:

Friday 3rd Dec: 65,990

Friday 26th Nov: 38,075

 

However so is the case positivity rate

Friday 3rd Dec: 24.3%

Friday 26th Nov: 9.2%

 

Which clearly indicates there are lots more out there and its a large growing number with much more testing needed to get a true picture of just how bad the spread is. 

 

https://twitter.com/sugan2503/status/1466854185312346112

 

[rabas]

8 hours ago, Virt said:

Yeah it's all speculation at this point, but here is another chart.

 

https://twitter.com/martjm/status/1465827091094638601/photo/1

 

If i understand this chart correct the mutation seems to be more related to the original strain and is it not unlikely it would have gone under the radar for so long if present in humans?

 

I don't think the idea is so far fetched, but of course it's just speculation at this time.

I think one reason they consider long-term immunocomprised cases is because HIV is so widespread in Africa including in isolated regions. 

 

 Co-developer of Nextstrain and this analysis software, Dr Emma Hodcroft, has a more detailed graph placing the Omicron root about midyear 2020. But that's still a long time ago.

 

https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1465004780372303873/photo/1

[Jeffr2]

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-chief-scientist-says-omicron-quite-infectious-must-not-panic-2021-12-03/

 

Omicron highly infectious, S.African cases doubling every day

Swaminathan says not clear yet whether Omicron is milder

Vaccine may not need to be adapted for Omicron

[Jeffr2]

Seems we've known about HIV and mutations for some time.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-hiv-had-coronavirus-216-131027370.html

A woman with HIV had the coronavirus for 216 days. The virus mutated at least 30 times inside her.

[placeholder]

15 minutes ago, lucky2008 said:

ridiculous. we know the truth now. the game is up/ 

The Storm is Coming.

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, lucky2008 said:

You better believe it is! 

One jab, two jab, three jab, four
five jab, six jab, seven jab more.  

Oh, just like the flu vaccine then?

[placeholder]

3 minutes ago, lucky2008 said:

You better believe it is! 

One jab, two jab, three jab, four
five jab, six jab, seven jab more.  

It seems to be a common belief among, not just covid anti-vaxxers, but vaccine supporters as well, that because a 3rd vaccination, or booster, is needed after 4 to 6 months, therefore that this is going to be the case in the future. But if you think about it, even a second jab is a booster. We know that one jab of most of the vaccines isn't enough. It's the second one that raised resistance to a very high level. So why assume that a 3rd inoculaltion will be no more effective than a second? There are other vaccines that require 3 to 4 vaccinations to engender long term immunity. What's more, a few small scale studies have been done on the effects of a 3rd inoculation with an mRNA vaccine. The antibody response was much stronger than after the 2nd  jab. So it's not at all a sure thing that vaccinations are going to have to be repeated every 6 months.