1) South Korea, which has long taken one of the most aggressive approaches in fighting the #COVID19 pandemic, declared a case count on Friday surging past 100,000 — its highest to date by far. In this thread, I will delve into what this means. 
2) South Korea is attributing this latest wave of cases to #Omicron. On Friday, Lim Sook-young, an official with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said authorities were also monitoring the Omicron stealth sub-variant, BA.2.
3) South Korea is also recording its highest number of #COVID hospitalizations than at any other point in the #pandemic. The chart below by Our World in Data shows a peak 192 hospitalizations per million population on Feb. 10 and another peak of 193 on Saturday.
4) South Korea’s current #COVID hospitalizations rate is now higher than those in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany, but considerably below the rate of 480 per million in Denmark, now in the grip of BA.2. Please take a look at the chart below.
5) COVID fatalities are also rebounding in South Korea, as the trend line in the chart by Our World in Data reveals. But to put that death rate in context, it’s 0.86 per million population compared with a rate of 6.6 in the United States and 6.12 in Denmark.
6) In response to the proliferation of #Omicron and possibly BA.2, South Korea announced it is extending its nightly curfew for restaurants and cafés until at least March 13. However, the curfew will be moved from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. following a backlash from business owners.
7) Elsewhere in Asia, Japan and Hong Kong are observing rises in COVID deaths amid BA.2 contagion, as the chart below by Our World in Data indicates. Hospitalizations have also been ramping up in Japan and have overwhelmed some hospitals in Hong Kong.
8) In my last thread, I wrote about how the World Health Organization devoted a “special focus” to BA.2 in its latest epidemiological weekly update. It noted the highest prevalence of BA.2 in Denmark and in South Africa.
https://twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel/status/1494812936572919808
9) When I first tweeted about Denmark earlier this week, Danish experts were quick to point out most of the latest deaths in the progressive nation were “with COVID” rather than “from COVID.” Denmark’s rate of COVID deaths climbed from 2.09 per million on Jan. 1 to 6.12 Friday.
10) My two tweets about South Africa have elicited a similar reaction. In fact, legendary international correspondent @geoffreyork, who covers Africa for the Toronto Globe and Mail, urged me repeatedly to correct my “misleading” reporting about South Africa’s rising deaths.
11) Mr. York alluded to South African experts who explain that their apparently rising #COVID deaths are actually mostly the result of the recent addition of older backlogged fatalities. The addition of backlogged deaths has occurred regularly in many nations during the pandemic.
12) Mr. York suggested the best way to track the death rate in South Africa is by examining so-called excess deaths. He even graciously provided a link to a comprehensive report on the subject, which I am including here as well: samrc.ac.za/reports/report…
13) So let me quote from the latest report on this topic: “The weekly number of deaths (all ages) from all causes decreased to 9,677 in Week 6 (6-12 Feb 2022) but remain higher than the upper prediction bound.” Remain higher than the upper prediction bound? What does that mean?
14) Since the preeminent Mr. York is based in Johannesburg, I suggested he might check into what this last point means about excess deaths. His response? “Unlike you, I trust the scientists in South Africa, and I don’t assume that I can correct them from Canada.” All right, then.
15) So let us assume as fact that nearly all of the rising deaths in South Africa are the result of backfilling older deaths from months ago. What, then, should authorities make of the rising prevalence of BA.2 in that country, as noted by the World Health Organization?
16) Rather than dwell on whether #COVID deaths are with or from COVID or whether most deaths are backfilled from months earlier, perhaps the focus should be on what the WHO suggests: the accelerating spread of the stealth sub-variant BA.2. End of thread. who.int/publications/m…
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