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South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

washingtonpost.com

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Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#191

Post by vmception »

dpark wrote: post #124
vmception wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be where I’m already registered to vote, dont worry Tie any restriction to ICU capacity and only if efforts were made to expand ICU capacity Otherwise that means the state was only pretending to care because it was easier to govern if people werent doing anything If the state actually cares increase the ICU bandwidth or tell us the challenges encountered doing that and how those are being addressed

You specifically mentioned “any major US markets”. Are you admitting to voter fraud now?

> I’ll move back to one of them

You’re reading what you want to read, it was worded specifically and intentionally

Its not any one of them, its the one that I am registered to vote in.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#192

Post by toolz »

katmannthree wrote: post #182
toolz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until public opinion seems to catch on to the fact that we will never eliminate covid. It blows my mind that we see 100% vaccinated universities going back to online-only learning. What exactly are they waiting on?

There are many places where that's a perfectly rational decision. COVID was never going to be completely managed by states less than willing to take draconian measures, the purpose soft-lockdowns was instead to lighten the load on our healthcare system so that we didn't need to invest in field hospitals and a bunch of field-trained doctors and nurses. If we had done that instead not only would the optics be worse (no…

Can you show me an area where the covid+ college age population was a healthcare capacity burden?

Further, if we're at such risk of overburdening our healthcare system, how come we have fewer heathcare workers today than we did back in 2018? How come our hospital bed capacity is shrinking instead of growing? These don't seem to be indicators that suggest we're lacking capacity in our healthcare systems.

In the past two years we've printed 80% of all US Dollars that have been printed in the history of the USD. We are not short on funding. Further it's not death or illness that is largely to blame for healthcare worker shortage as the only large drop in HCWs was on march 2020. Since then it's been growing, just hasn't recovered yet.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#193

Post by cdrini »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #138
cdrini wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That chart is misleading; the rise/spike in deaths is always delayed from the rise/spike in cases. It does seem like Omicron is less deadly than Delta. The big concern is that because it's so significantly more contagious, that even though a smaller percentage of infected people will require ventilators, the absolute number will be high enough to overwhelm hospitals. Sources: Dr. John Campbell, Dr. Larry Brilliant (W…

> because it's so significantly more contagious, that even though a smaller percentage of infected people will require ventilators, the absolute number will be high enough to overwhelm hospitals. This is a legitimate theoretical concern, however empirically it looks like South Africa's hospitalizations are peaking at slightly more than half their previous wave, with deaths on pace to peak even lower[1][2] [1] https:/…

I believe the scientific consensus is that there isn't enough data to discount that theoretical concern. There's still too much uncertainty on how things will pan out, so the recommendation is boosters + some restrictions. They're not going to make a bet when people's lives are at stake, which seems reasonable to me. With more data coming out, I personally do hope we find that that concern is very unlikely. The situation is changing drastically day-by-day.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#194

Post by thelittleone »

It has been really interesting to observe the hysteria. From the moment they chose the name Omicron, which sounds like a nemesis in a Transformers movie. But more in observing how friends and family back home latch on to the media (which they remain constantly plugged into). The repetition of buzzwords and how enthusiastically they talked about booster shots now being 5 months instead of 6. I don't know anything at all about the medical realities, but can see loud and clear, more than ever how people's mental states are manipulated by media.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#195

Post by ralfd »

jerlam wrote: post #68
nostromo wrote: post #13

The panic surrounding Omicron is absurd. Take a look at these two charts. Omicron cases spiked in SA. Deaths didn't budge. At all. https://i.imgur.com/TgRmz4F.png [1] Omicron is a good thing, if your baseline is Delta. But I'm still waiting for the US media stop hyperventilating about it. 1. https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...

Denmark is the other country with an Omicron-fueled spike, but they have a corresponding increase in deaths: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...

But compare that to the delta wave last winter! The infections are 3-4 times higher and the death count is 2-3 times lower (so far).

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#196

Post by andybak »

BikiniPrince wrote: post #134
Auracle wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He means they were already exposed to another variant so they have some immunity. That immunity may very well work better than the vaccines on omicron - I don’t think we’re far enough in to it to have a great idea of that yet.

They have something like 23% vaccination rate. It is about as raw as it is going to get. My friends who have it now indicate it is very mild.

Good job we've got your friends as a data point.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#197

Post by toolz »

davidw wrote: post #189
toolz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until public opinion seems to catch on to the fact that we will never eliminate covid. It blows my mind that we see 100% vaccinated universities going back to online-only learning. What exactly are they waiting on?

> What exactly are they waiting on? The thing that needs to not happen is filling up hospitals. People died where I live because they could not get access to 'elective' surgery due to the medical system being slammed during the most recent Delta wave. Once that's not a factor, things will start getting more normal.

Elective procedures were mandated to stop by policy - not due to capacity constraints.

Believe it or not, but 2020 hospital capacity was lower than projected using projections before anyone knew what covid even was.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#198

Post by andybak »

hammock wrote: post #149
volkse wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been discussed many times before - the issue with the SA data is that 80% of the population have been exposed to the virus (either had it or have been vaccinated) so the deaths not budging there can be very misleading for countries with lower vaccination rates.

Wait, natural immunity is real?

Please don't post comments like this. It's impossible to work out what your actual point is

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#199

Post by nsxwolf »

ufo wrote: post #80
voxadam wrote: post #14

Am I the only one who reads these less than scientific articles as much more than wishful thinking? I mean, I hope this pandemic comes to a close as much as anyone but so many of the recent news articles about the omicron variant being our collective way out of this pandemic seem a bit premature. I understand the theory that viruses become more contagious and less deadly over time but is there an real, peer reviewed…

And that theory about viruses becoming less deadly isn't an universal rule in the first place. For example, smallpox and measles never got less deadly. In many cases, the virus becoming less deadly is because the population acquired immunity from vaccinations or previous infection, not because the virus evolved that way. In the case of covid, one important thing to consider is that people are the most infectious befo…

It does seem to be true of respiratory viruses though. Asiatic flu is still around, probably HCoV-OC43, now a nearly harmless common cold virus. Spanish flu is still dangerous like all flus, but not the killer that it was.

It would be odd if this is the one, the permanently deadly respiratory virus that just never gives humanity a break, for ever and ever.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#200

Post by dfxm12 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #152
toolz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until public opinion seems to catch on to the fact that we will never eliminate covid. It blows my mind that we see 100% vaccinated universities going back to online-only learning. What exactly are they waiting on?

>What exactly are they waiting on? Public opinion.

If federal law makers cared about public opinion, they'd have declassified marijuanna as a schedule 1 drug [0]. They also would not have done the recent weapons deal with Saudi Arabia [1].

0 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/356939/support-legal-marijuana-...

1 - https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/12/7/a-strong-majo...

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