Covid cases in South Africa drop by 38 per cent in a week as death figures boost evidence that Omicron variant is less severe than Delta

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 28 December 2021 | VICTORIA ALLEN

[BeauBo]

Cases of Covid in South Africa are continuing to fall, as the wave caused by Omicron appears to burn itself out...

However the figures for deaths reflect the evidence from the UK that Omicron is significantly less severe than the previous Delta variant.

At the very start of the year, in South Africa, deaths hit their peak at an average of 578 a day in the seven days to January 4. The daily toll now is around 60 deaths, bearing out suggestions that patients in South Africa have milder symptoms and are less likely to end up in hospital...

Last week new data from South Africa showed nine in 10 deaths from Omicron were in unvaccinated patients.

Among the country's 309 deaths from the variant, just 40 were found to be in people given two vaccine doses.

[BeauBo]

Significantly lower rate of hospitalization during the Omicron wave in South Africa (their fourth wave). About 1/3 the rate of the first two waves, and only about 1/4 the rate of their Delta wave.

Hospitalizations during South Africa's Omicron wave were also significantly less serious (1/4 to 1/2), and significantly shorter on average (2-3 days).

[SmokingJoe]

What is Omicron?
Some kind of cream?

[BozoTexino]

So, it’s not Omichronic?

[JonPreston]

Please stop posting material like this. It could damage the Agenda.

[Republican Wildcat]

Very good news - and we are far enough into it to know it is not just a false hope from early data - the trend has continued long enough after to where lagging indicators are no longer in doubt.

[BeauBo]

There are still some possible confounding variables (South Africa’s Delta wave dropped off a lot faster than the USA or UK’s), but it continues to look so much better than Delta, pretty much everywhere.

[dsrtsage]

Guess its back to the drawing board

[traderrob6]

"South Africa’s Delta wave dropped off a lot faster than the USA or UK’s"... Not sure I agree with that

[MotorCityBuck]

😂

[BeauBo]

The US and the UK Delta waves went up like South Africa's, but did not drop all the back down like South Africa's.

Instead, they dropped to about half of the peak, plateaued, and then began slowly rising again. Here is the USA:

[traderrob6]

But the Delta wave in SA did not in my estimation “drop off fast” as it actually lasted twice as long as their previous waves (Beta etc.)

The second “rise” the US is experiencing starting in mid November and may have been the Delta wave in combination with the first cases of Omicron. By the second week of Dec, Omicron was really beginning to rear it’s ugly head.

[BeauBo]

“drop off fast”

Not a perfectly accurate way of describing that the curves were different, but that was my point - the Omicron US curve may not track like the South African, because they were different shapes for Delta.