He cautioned, however, that it was still in the early days and hospital admissions could rise sharply as the variant evolves.
Sounds very flu-like.
By the way, anyone heard about that “flu” thing lately? Seems like it’s just flat-out disappeared over the past couple of years or so.
Modern medicine, I guess.
Covid has been blasting through the vaccinated like a hot knife through butter...Fortunately, Omicron showed up...to take the blame for new restrictions.
Who’s the dumbass who decided that allowing the infected to come to America from Sud Afrika was a good idea. As though America really needed another Covid Flavor of the Week here. Dumbass democrats and their “refugees.” Idiots.
No vaccine, spreads rapidly, but mostly harmless. They’re describing the common cold.
Glenda Gray, president of the South African Medical Research Council, said… “We don’t think it’s a question of virulence, but more a question of exposure to vaccination and prior infection, so we would be cautious to try and interpret that this is a less virulent strain“
I think both are occurring, some lower virulence and some mitigation from prior infections and vaccination.
But they do seem to be backing off a bit, from how mild they described it early on, when they were stinging from the sudden travel bans imposed on South Africa.
I think they got about 1/3 of the hospitalization rates of earlier waves, and for shorter durations.
Now that Omicron has been dominant for a few weeks there, it is possible that their current COVID deaths may be Omicron deaths.
Is Omicron “more resistant” to the vaccines, or are the vaccines “more conducive” to acquiring the disease. It’s an important distinction. The data are not in yet on the answer, but the possibility is certainly real that being vaccinated makes one more likely to get the disease than one who is not vaccinated. This certainly needs to be studied and revealed to the population. Somehow, I suspect that neither will happen quickly.
It also may be true that the answer is that this effect is beneficial. If Omicron is a much less deadly variant, and acquiring it makes one more immune to subsequent variants this could possibly lead to herd immunity in us ignorant herds, and maybe even the ignorant hoards running the government.
I will read what South Africa says about the virus as their medical system has survived well from Apartheid and is FAR LESS CORRUPT than our own.
Bottom line is that few patients are showing up in hospitals and likely nothing different than a typical flu season.