Thread by @sailorrooscout

Encouraging news out of South Africa’s MOH this morning. Age-controlled data regarding Omicron severity. ACROSS ALL AGES, death rates among hospitalized patients are 2/3 LOWER in the Omicron wave. In addition, hospitalization rates have FALLEN 91% in the Omicron wave.🧵

You can find the presentation here:

“Only 1.7% of identified COVID-19 cases were admitted to hospital in the second week of infections in the fourth wave, compared with 19% in the same week of the third delta-driven wave.” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

“We have seen a decrease in a proportion of people who need to be on oxygen. They are at very low levels,” said Waasila Jassat, a researcher with the NICD. “For the first time there are more non-severe than severe patients in hospital.” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Summary:
•Difficult to disentangle if less severity is due to prior IMMUNITY (vaccine or natural infection) OR intrinsic virulence of Omicron
•Most hospital admissions in UNVACCINATED individuals
•>70% seroprevalence and 40% one dose of vaccine
•2-3x higher risk re-infection

•Vaccine immune escape (nAbs ONLY), protection against SEVERE infection sustained
•Other provinces may have lower seroprevalence and lower vaccination
•Vulnerable: UNVACCINATED, no previous SARS-CoV-2 infection
•GET PROTECTED. GET BOOSTED.
•Don’t walk around immune naive!

For those who have been asking, early data regarding COVID hospital admissions out of London. 111/169 new COVID patients were NOT being treated primarily for COVID but rather tested positive upon admission (proportion much higher than previous waves). H/T: @drraghibali

In other words, 111/169 patients incidentally tested positive AFTER being admitted for other conditions. I recommend reading @drraghibali’s thread on the matter and in addition you can read more here: ft.com/content/c14173… and: thetimes.co.uk/article/third-… (GET VACCINATED!)