Could this be Covid good news ? Gauteng RSA

[TorquayFan]

Dr John Campbell presents insights to some latest data from Gauteng Province which includes Johhanesburg and Pretoria and 25% of RSA's population. He mentions that massive transmissibility is evident from sewage analyses. There seems to be a lower amount of severe illness and hospitalisation. Here's the base report for his comments : hTTps://www.samrc.ac.za/news/tshwane-district-omicron-variant-patient-profile-early-features

And here's Dr JC in full flow :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Paq17X6ucQ

Interesting and hopeful data from the hotbed of Omicron . . . . Dr JC concludes his piece with a remarkable statement, if I heard it right, that massive herd immunity could be achieved and essentially, the end of the pandemic.

I'M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH ON THAT ONE BUT GOOD TO HEAR . . .

[Jeffr2]

He's not a medical doctor, so I'd be careful of his predictions.

 

All the experts now are saying it's too early to tell.  But for sure, it's very worrying.

[TorquayFan]

Jeffr2 - I'm not a particular JC fan, but this is helpful IMO. And you need to go through the SAMRC report - it's worth a look even though it's obviously early data - some grounds for optimism ?

[Jeffr2]

2 minutes ago, TorquayFan said:

Jeffr2 - I'm not a particular JC fan, but this is helpful IMO. And you need to go through the SAMRC report - it's worth a look even though it's obviously early data - some grounds for optimism ?

I do think he has some very good videos.  But he's not an expert.  Pretty much every expert I've read has said it's way to early to tell.  There is some optimism that it could be milder, but then pessimism that it's more transmissible.  Evades natural immunity better.  Etc.

 

We need more time.  Sadly, covid deniers use this to say everything is OK and blame MSM for flaming the fires.

[Kinnock]

For any other pandemic, I believe this would be the beginning of the end.  Coronaviruses mutate, and when the mutation makes it more transmissable it will become the dominant strain, and this effect is magnified if it also has milder symptoms (as people who are not very sick are more mobile, so help the spread).

 

That's why SARS and MERS disappeared, as we now know governments and the WHO are largely useless in the face of a pandemic, so it wasn't them who beat it.  That's also why Ebola does not spread far - very sick people don't go on holidays.

 

 But .... with the insane level of media focus on COVID-19, every case will be reported out of context, creating more panic amongst the bureaucrats and causing even more economic damage.

 

And, no I'm not a medical doctor (or an ex SAS assassin), I'm a retired Public Health officer, so know just enough to be amazed at how the media have managed to blow this pandemic out of proportion.

[Jeffr2]

1 minute ago, Kinnock said:

For any other pandemic, I believe this would be the beginning of the end.  Coronaviruses mutate, and when the mutation makes it more transmissable it will become the dominant strain, and this effect is magnified if it also has milder symptoms (as people who are not very sick are more mobile, so help the spread).

 

That's why SARS and MERS disappeared, as we now know governments and the WHO are largely useless in the face of a pandemic, so it wasn't them who beat it.  That's also why Ebola does not spread far - very sick people don't go on holidays.

 

 But .... with the insane level of media focus on COVID-19, every case will be reported out of context, creating more panic amongst the bureaucrats and causing even more economic damage.

 

And, no I'm not a medical doctor (or an ex SAS assassin), I'm a retired Public Health officer, so know just enough to be amazed at how the media have managed to blow this pandemic out of proportion.

Perhaps 17MM dead?  And you say this pandemic has been blown out of proportion?  Come on.  Ya gotta be kidding.

 

SARS and MERS disappeared for completely different reasons.  And were completely different viruses.  Same with Ebola. 

 

[placeholder]

Fauci says early reports encouraging about omicron variant

U.S. health officials said Sunday that while the omicron variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations.

President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that scientists need more information before drawing conclusions about omicron’s severity.

Reports from South Africa, where it emerged and is becoming the dominant strain, suggest that hospitalization rates have not increased alarmingly.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-lifestyle-health-travel-ef7c250c58b90b9835a972d7ebd9556b

[Kinnock]

2 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

Perhaps 17MM dead?  And you say this pandemic has been blown out of proportion?  Come on.  Ya gotta be kidding.

 

SARS and MERS disappeared for completely different reasons.  And were completely different viruses.  Same with Ebola. 

 

Yes, it was a serious pandemic with tragic consequences, but deaths from other diseases have never been tracked, tested and reported to the same extent.  Many of the testing techniques were not even available for earlier pandemics, and mass social media was not of the same scale.

 

If the same focus had been applied to flu, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, TB, they would look almost as bad.

 

We cannot be sure this is the start of the end of the end, but I am 100% sure that most people have no real sense of proportion about COVID.

[Jeffr2]

3 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Fauci says early reports encouraging about omicron variant

U.S. health officials said Sunday that while the omicron variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations.

President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that scientists need more information before drawing conclusions about omicron’s severity.

Reports from South Africa, where it emerged and is becoming the dominant strain, suggest that hospitalization rates have not increased alarmingly.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-lifestyle-health-travel-ef7c250c58b90b9835a972d7ebd9556b

“Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it,” Fauci said. “But we have really got to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or it really doesn’t cause any severe illness, comparable to delta.”

 

“Even if we have a large number of cases that are mild, some of those individuals will need hospitalizations,” she said. “They will need to go into ICU and some people will die. ... We don’t want to see that happen on top of an already difficult situation with delta circulating globally.”

[Kinnock]

11 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

 

 

SARS and MERS disappeared for completely different reasons.  And were completely different viruses.  Same with Ebola. 

 

.... enlighten me.

 

WHO claimed it was the preventative measures such as track and trace, hand hygiene, masks etc.  We now know that is not true.

[placeholder]

10 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

For any other pandemic, I believe this would be the beginning of the end.  Coronaviruses mutate, and when the mutation makes it more transmissable it will become the dominant strain, and this effect is magnified if it also has milder symptoms (as people who are not very sick are more mobile, so help the spread).

 

That's why SARS and MERS disappeared, as we now know governments and the WHO are largely useless in the face of a pandemic, so it wasn't them who beat it.  That's also why Ebola does not spread far - very sick people don't go on holidays.

 

 

Your explanation of why Sars1, Mers, and Ebola disappeared is false.

Ebola is spread by actual physical contact with in infected person. It's not very transmissible

"Unlike a cold or the flu, the Ebola virus is not spread by tiny droplets that remain in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Ebola is spread between humans when an uninfected person has direct contact with body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease or has died. People become contagious when they develop symptoms."

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ebola-virus/expert-answers/can-ebola-spread-through-air/faq-20115575

 

Sars 1 diied out because

" The virus had a staggeringly high fatality rate –almost one in five patients died – but this meant that it was relatively easy to identify those who were infected, and quarantine them. There was no extra spread from people without symptoms, and as a bonus, Sars took a relatively long time to incubate before it became contagious, which gave contact-tracers extra time to find anyone who might be infected before they could pass it on.

“But also governments and institutions acted really fast,” says Cobey."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200918-why-some-deadly-viruses-vanish-and-go-extinct

 

As for Mers

"...humans are typically infected from camels, either during direct contact or indirectly.^[2] Spread between humans typically requires close contact with an infected person.^[2] Its spread is uncommon outside of hospitals^[7".

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome}

 

[cmarshall]

26 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Yes, it was a serious pandemic with tragic consequences, but deaths from other diseases have never been tracked, tested and reported to the same extent.  Many of the testing techniques were not even available for earlier pandemics, and mass social media was not of the same scale.

 

If the same focus had been applied to flu, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, TB, they would look almost as bad.

 

We cannot be sure this is the start of the end of the end, but I am 100% sure that most people have no real sense of proportion about COVID.

But you are missing the point.  The Covid pandemic posed a lethal threat to anyone in the highly developed countries.  So, it doesn't matter how high or low the final mortality rate is.  It is news and a focus, because a lot of people whose lives were never threatened by malaria, TB, or even flu at least to the same extent, have been facing a novel and lethal threat.  

 

During the Viet Nam war the US Selective Service put all young men aged eighteen or above in the pool from which the actual draftees would be randomly selected.  So, except for those with deferments of one kind or another, all men eighteen and over were at risk of being drafted and sent to a war zone.  So, they protested against the war in large numbers.  By 1970, however, the Selective Service realized that most of the young men in the pool would never be drafted because the manpower needs were much smaller than the entire cohort of eligible young men.  So, they realized that they their own system was stimulating more protest than it had to.  They then started holding an annual lottery the result of which would be that three quarters of the young men would realize they were at no risk of being drafted and would be much less inclined to do any protesting.  

 

The scale of the risk depends on the size of the pool of people, especially relatively rich ones, who feel themselves at risk.  With Covid that was everyone or at least all the smart ones.

[Kinnock]

13 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Your explanation of why Sars1, Mers, and Ebola disappeared is false.

Ebola is spread by actual physical contact with in infected person. It's not very transmissible

"Unlike a cold or the flu, the Ebola virus is not spread by tiny droplets that remain in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Ebola is spread between humans when an uninfected person has direct contact with body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease or has died. People become contagious when they develop symptoms."

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ebola-virus/expert-answers/can-ebola-spread-through-air/faq-20115575

 

Sars 1 diied out because

" The virus had a staggeringly high fatality rate –almost one in five patients died – but this meant that it was relatively easy to identify those who were infected, and quarantine them. There was no extra spread from people without symptoms, and as a bonus, Sars took a relatively long time to incubate before it became contagious, which gave contact-tracers extra time to find anyone who might be infected before they could pass it on.

“But also governments and institutions acted really fast,” says Cobey."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200918-why-some-deadly-viruses-vanish-and-go-extinct

 

As for Mers

"...humans are typically infected from camels, either during direct contact or indirectly.^[2] Spread between humans typically requires close contact with an infected person.^[2] Its spread is uncommon outside of hospitals^[7".

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome}

 

Another Google Epidemiologist (or perhaps one Google Epidemiologist with two Aseannow accounts).

 

I was working in Taiwan during SARS, and was in Dubai and KSA during MERS, and most of what you Googled does not reflect the true situation.  But I'm sure you and Jeffr2 could find more spurious links to prove the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

[Jeffr2]

2 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Another Google Epidemiologist (or perhaps one Google Epidemiologist with two Aseannow accounts).

 

I was working in Taiwan during SARS, and was in Dubai and KSA during MERS, and most of what you Googled does not reflect the true situation.  But I'm sure you and Jeffr2 could find more spurious links to prove the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

I was in China during SARS.  Had to get on an evacuation flight to leave the country.  Took me quite some time to do so.  I've got no idea who Dunning-Kruger is.

[Kinnock]

10 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

But you are missing the point.  The Covid pandemic posed a lethal threat to anyone in the highly developed countries.  So, it doesn't matter how high or low the final mortality rate is.  It is news and a focus, because a lot of people whose lives were never threatened by malaria, TB, or even flu at least to the same extent, have been facing a novel and lethal threat.  

 

During the Viet Nam war the US Selective Service put all young men aged eighteen or above in the pool from which the actual draftees would be randomly selected.  So, except for those with deferments of one kind or another, all men eighteen and over were at risk of being drafted and sent to a war zone.  So, they protested against the war in large numbers.  By 1970, however, the Selective Service realized that most of the young men in the pool would never be drafted because the manpower needs were much smaller than the entire cohort of eligible young men.  So, they realized that they their own system was stimulating more protest than it had to.  They then started holding an annual lottery the result of which would be that three quarters of the young men would realize they were at no risk of being drafted and would be much less inclined to do any protesting.  

 

The scale of the risk depends on the size of the pool of people, especially relatively rich ones, who feel themselves at risk.  With Covid that was everyone or at least all the smart ones.

Yes, good point.  COVID was a first world problem, which magnified the social media effect.  Deaths from diarrhoeal diseases in the less developed world are probably higher than deaths from COVID,  ut that does not interest the First World keyboard warriors.

[placeholder]

1 minute ago, Kinnock said:

Another Google Epidemiologist (or perhaps one Google Epidemiologist with two Aseannow accounts).

 

I was working in Taiwan during SARS, and was in Dubai and KSA during MERS, and most of what you Googled does not reflect the true situation.  But I'm sure you and Jeffr2 could find more spurious links to prove the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

Right. Because you were there that makes you a virologist/epidemiologist. I make no such pretence. I'm citing the work of scientists. 

And the only instance of Dunning Kruger effect I see here is of someone who cannot produce any scientific support for his statements but offers himself as an authority.

"The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills."

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect#:~:text=The Dunning-Kruger effect is,accurately assessing their own skills.

I'm smart enough to know that I don't know enough to figure this one out. That I should trust in the experts. . Whereas you...

[Kinnock]

2 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

.  I've got no idea who Dunning-Kruger is.

Google it ????

 

[placeholder]

Just now, Kinnock said:

Google it ????

 

I think you should do that too since it clearly applies to someone who believes his judgement is superior to that of scientists and medical authorities.

[Jeffr2]

2 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Yes, good point.  COVID was a first world problem, which magnified the social media effect.  Deaths from diarrhoeal diseases in the less developed world are probably higher than deaths from COVID,  ut that does not interest the First World keyboard warriors.

Covid has taken over as one of the top 3 or so causes of death.  As you may know, many in Africa never report deaths.  That costs money.  So they just bury the dead where they can.

[Jeffr2]

2 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Google it ????

 

No.  Not worth my time.

[placeholder]

17 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

No.  Not worth my time.

If you haven't already done so, I provided a definition above. What makes kinnocks citation of the effect is that he clearly doesn't understand it. He tried to apply it to me, who cites expert judgements. That's exactly who the Dunning-Kruger effect 

does not apply to. Whereas he, apparently based on his alleged proximity to outbreaks of the disease, actually fancies himself to be an authority on virology and epidemiology. He has performed the impressive feat of achieving the Dunning Kruger effect squared.

[Virt]

This article is optimistic, so let's cross fingers and wish for a better future where COVID  is no more the huge problem as it is now.

 

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/omicron-variant-may-signal-the-end-of-covid-suggests-south-african-health-expert/news-story/9788a1687cfad162d4d18089aa952aff

 

Off course we can't control how deadly the next mutations will become, but if it follows the same path as the Spanish flu there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[Kinnock]

11 hours ago, placeholder said:

If you haven't already done so, I provided a definition above. What makes kinnocks citation of the effect is that he clearly doesn't understand it. He tried to apply it to me, who cites expert judgements. That's exactly who the Dunning-Kruger effect 

does not apply to. Whereas he, apparently based on his alleged proximity to outbreaks of the disease, actually fancies himself to be an authority on virology and epidemiology. He has performed the impressive feat of achieving the Dunning Kruger effect squared.

Why are you talking to yourself? ????

 

Anyway, I do think my 40 years community public health experience at least allows me to have an opinion on the typical path of a pandemic, but what I do not understand is why some people seem to revel in the fear.

[placeholder]

51 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Why are you talking to yourself? ????

 

Anyway, I do think my 40 years community public health experience at least allows me to have an opinion on the typical path of a pandemic, but what I do not understand is why some people seem to revel in the fear.

Whatever your alleged community public service may have done for you, it didn't make you a virologist or an epidemiologist. And what has fear got to do with learning why a particular pathogen had a certain history?. Clearly the facts are against you. You've produced nothing factual, nothing from the epidemiological community that supports your one-size-fits-all claim.