Thread by @sailorrooscout

If you are wondering what is going on in South Africa in regards to Omicron, doctors describe what they are seeing thus far. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Now, if one is wondering why hospitalizations are going up, according to their MOH, 90% of hospitalizations in South Africa are unvaccinated individuals (zero doses), 10% remaining are mostly partially vaccinated (one dose) Low vaccination rates (less than 30% fully vaccinated).

In regards to the rise in cases, this isn’t exactly surprising based on the study I highlighted yesterday on Omicron’s ability to reinfect. Per in article in this thread, hospitalizations seem to be lower proportion of cases than previous waves. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

For those asking about the 90% of individuals hospitalized being unvaccinated source, see here.

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1466110298897752065

TLDR: I know the media is really off-putting at the moment, but it is important to get a view of what is being seen. It is still early on, so we remain cautiously optimistic. There are still many unknowns. Get vaccinated. Stay calm. Stay vigilant. We are working on it.

And AS ALWAYS, yes we need more data.

Update from Steve Biko Hospital in Tshwane. While numbers of hospitalized patients with Omicron in South Africa have been high, rates of COVID pneumonia are low. Most cases are incidentally diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 (pediatric cases as well). samrc.ac.za/news/tshwane-d…

While we still need more data, see here stating that most patients contributing to the hospitalized numbers were hospitalized for another reason and found to be SARS-CoV-2 upon admission screen. H/T: @emilybethwong

Omicron very well may have picked up a snippet of the same genetic sequence that appears many times in one of the coronaviruses that causes colds in people - known as HCoV-229E. Study link can be found here: reuters.com/business/healt…