Posted on 12/06/2021 4:00:10 PM PST by BusterDog
JOHANNESBURG — Some South Africa hospital wards are jammed with patients infected with the omicron coronavirus variant as President Cyril Ramaphosa urged South Africans on Monday to get vaccinated.
In the past week, cases have reached more than 16,000, up dramatically from 2,300 last Monday, according to South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
The NICD says the increase in cases in such a short period of time is “unprecedented” in the trajectory of the pandemic, now in its fourth phase in the country.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing a more than doubling of hospital admissions each day,” said Ian Sanne, an infectious diseases specialist who serves on South Africa’s COVID-19 presidential advisory committee.
(Excerpt) Read more at voanews.com ...
Probably very little, if it is a mild case they probably don’t need much of anything.
>>The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) was established in 1969 with a mandate to improve the health of the country’s population, through research, development and technology transfer, so that people can enjoy a better quality of life. The scope of the organisation’s research projects includes tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular and non-communicable diseases, gender and health, and alcohol and other drug abuse. With a strategic objective to help strengthen the health systems of the country – in line with that of the Department of Health, the SAMRC constantly identifies the main causes of death in South Africa.<<
https://www.samrc.ac.za/news/tshwane-district-omicron-variant-patient-profile-early-features
>>The main observation that we have made over the last two weeks is that the majority of patients in the COVID wards have not been oxygen dependent. SARS-CoV-2 has been an incidental finding in patients that were admitted to the hospital for another medical, surgical or obstetric reason.
A snapshot of 42 patients in the ward on 2 December 2021 reveals that 29 (70%) are not oxygen dependent. These patients are saturating well on room air and do not present with any respiratory symptoms. These are the patients that we would call ‘incidental COVID admissions’, having had another medical or surgical reason for admission. Thirteen (13) patients are dependent on supplemental oxygen of which nine (21%) have a diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia based on a combination of symptoms, clinical signs, CXR and inflammatory markers. All are being prescribed steroids as the mainstay of therapy. The remaining 4 patients are on oxygen for other medical reasons (2 previously on home oxygen, 1 in heart failure and 1 with a confirmed diagnosis of Pneumocystis Pneumonia).
This is a picture that has not been seen in previous waves. In the beginning of all three previous waves and throughout the course of these waves, there has always only been a sprinkling of patients on room air in the COVID ward and these patients have usually been in the recovery phase waiting for the resolution of a co-morbidity prior to discharge. <<
I lean toward BS. I would not know of any pandemic if I did not read news.
Just more fear porn.
The only real way to test for any variant is in a lab with a Gene Sequencing machine, there are no tests for specific variants in a clinic or hospital.
Frankly it’s hard to believe any reports since hospitals gain monetary advantage for claiming covid.
The media wants to promote a point of view. Truth has nothing to do with what they print.
The answer is always get vaccinated. However they say vaccination will not be effective on the new variant. They need to get their story straight.
A subset of all COVID tests are sent for sequencing.
It isn't easy to learn how many samples are sequenced and how many are sequenced AND sent to GISAID. I found this with a bit of searching:
Country - Percentage of cases sequenced
Iceland - 56%
Denmark - 47%
Australia - 21%
Luxembourg - 20%
India - 15%
Norway - 13%
USA - 3.6%
Not surprisingly, in the US, it varies widely by state.
In California:
August 2021, 16%
July 2021, 23%
NOTE: In California, these are the number of sequences submitted to the data repository GISAID and is not a complete list of sequences completed to date.
In April 2021, the US ranked 33rd in the world in terms of the percentage of COVID-19 cases sequenced, up from 36th a few weeks earlier.
The USA has over 60 labs capable of doing the sequencing for the CDC's national strain surveillance network. One lab, the Mako Medical Lab in North Carolina is sequencing 30,000 samples per day.
“...I’ve found myself wondering the past few weeks if the infection numbers reported are just complete BS.”
There are no reliable and accurate numbers concerning COVID, from any source whatsoever, and this has been the case pretty much since the beginning of the whole thing.
Just cherry-pick what you want to believe, like everyone.
The death rate is looking pretty good in SA.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/
With all the fuss over the unvaccinated the vaccinated numbers are also way off
OK.
It is officially time to PaNiC !!
Good point.
Ditto
“This looks increasingly like South Africa is managing the numbers to look “mild” so travel will re-open for them.”
Possible, hard to tell what is the truth. I do know the Truth is out there.
FEAR PORN.
Media LIES, exaggerations.
The LAST thing you should do is go to a hospital.
It was ALWAYS a crap shoot, wrong arm/leg amputated, infectious diseases abound, gross INCOMPETENCE by medical staff, all very dangerous places then.
NOW, literal DEATH CAMPS.
Remember, hospitals are where they “practice” medicine.
“Some South Africa hospital wards are jammed with patients infected with the omicron coronavirus variant “
When I was in South Africa, a lot of people were infected with AIDS. I must wonder if the people sick with omicron in the hospital wards have Aids.
What would the death toll be on Aids infected population?
The common cold can put an Aids infected person (non-treated for Aids) into the hospital. A lot of people with Aids in South Africa do not get Aids treatment until they are very sick.
My spouse is S African. Many family members and friends have had a bug in the last 1 to 2 months. I count 11. All were young (30ish) and none ended up hospitalized. Reports of a pounding headache and severe cough were common. Tended to last around 5-6 days. One male reported it hit his 5 colleagues in a couple days. Thus if the latest variant— highly contagious, debilitating for about a week and then folks move on.
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