Thread by @VincentRK

The Great South African Mystery.

At this point, the US should have 4 times more immunity than SouthAfrica: 3 times more people have already had COVID in the US; our vaccination rate is more than double theirs.

But our current death rate is running 4 times higher. Why?
1/

I really don't know
3 possible reasons:

a) Differences in demographics & co-morbidities (although with prior waves, their deaths have tracked ours)
b)Inaccurate case ascertainment: they may have had far more people with prior Covid than has been reported
c) Different variants
2/

Many have pointed to the low death rate now in South Africa with the Omicron wave as an indication that Omicron is milder.

But I think our problem in the US is different: we are facing delta plus omicron. Not just omicron.
3/

Our capacity to take on more new cases is low, regardless of whether omicron is mild or not.

So as cases rise we just have to be careful and take precautions because for whatever reason, we are on a different trajectory. So don't look at South Africa for comfort.
4/

What about other countries in Africa? That's a question for another day. A different mystery.

Most African countries look 180 different than either the US or South Africa.
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