{"id":543814,"date":"2021-12-03T11:17:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T09:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=543814"},"modified":"2021-12-03T11:20:55","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T09:20:55","slug":"omicron-up-close-what-south-africas-experts-are-actually-seeing-on-the-frontlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/543814\/omicron-up-close-what-south-africas-experts-are-actually-seeing-on-the-frontlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Omicron up close: What South Africa&#8217;s experts are actually seeing on the frontlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The panicked reaction across much of the world to the omicron variant comes with a scramble for information. In South Africa, the country where omicron was first identified and where cases are jumping, scientists and doctors describe what they are seeing.<\/p>\n<p>Here are highlights from several interviews and a briefing.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Marc Mendelson, the head of infectious diseases at the University of Cape Town, who also works at Groote Schuur Hospital, where the world\u2019s first heart transplant took place:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cAnecdotally, we are seeing a lot of reinfections. What we don\u2019t know at the moment, because we haven\u2019t got the data yet, is how many of those people are un-vaccinated versus the vaccinated.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWhile people are freaking out, the other thing to stress is that if you look across the variants, the vaccines have protected against severe disease, hospitalization and death. And really, looking at the omicron mutations, though there are an awful lot of them, there\u2019s nothing really to indicate that the ability of vaccines to fight this is going to be affected to a very great extent.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIn truth, it doesn\u2019t want to kill you, it wants you to stick around.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe only ones putting their hand on their hearts and telling the world don\u2019t worry, this is going to be mild, haven\u2019t learned enough humility yet in the face of this virus.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIt\u2019s always nice to hope, but don\u2019t set everything on this because I think your hopes could be dashed.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Richard Friedland, chief executive officer of Netcare, which operates the largest private health-care network in South Africa:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIf in the second and third wave we\u2019d seen these levels of positivity to tests conducted, we would have seen very significant increases in hospital admissions and we\u2019re not seeing that. In our primary care clinics it is mainly people under 30-years-old.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cSo I actually think there is a silver lining here and this may signal the end of Covid-19, with it attenuating itself to such an extent that it\u2019s highly contagious, but doesn\u2019t cause severe disease. That\u2019s what happened with Spanish flu.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe are seeing breakthrough infections of people who have been vaccinated, but the infections we\u2019re seeing are very mild to moderate. So for health care workers who have had boosters, it\u2019s mostly mild. I think this whole thing has been so poorly communicated and so much panic generated.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIt\u2019s early days, but I\u2019m less panicked. It feels different to me on the ground.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Shabir Madhi, a vaccinologist from the University of the Witwatersrand, who led trials of both AstraZeneca\u2019s and Novavax\u2019s shots in South Africa:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cOmicron seems to be moving at a faster speed than delta, but at the same time what seems to be happening is that our hospitalization rate is somewhat more muted.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cVaccine or past transmission create T-cell immunity, which are good at protecting against severe disease and death. The mutations of the virus very likely make it more successful against antibody activities, but it seems like there may well be preservation of the T-cell immunity.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019m optimistic that in this resurgence, while the total number of cases will probably be greater, hospitalizations and deaths will be lower than what we experienced during the course of any of the first three waves. And that is, because right now in South Africa, all indications are that 75% to 80% of people were infected with the virus during the course of the first three waves. That is probably going to equip those individuals &#8212; not to resist infection &#8212; but rather prevent progression of infection to severe disease.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Anne von Gottberg, a clinical microbiologist at South Africa\u2019s National Institute for Communicable Diseases:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cAll the data has shown that children have a less severe clinical course and we\u2019ve had some anecdotal reports from hospitals in South Africa, that yes, they are seeing a few more children in some of the hospitals and are admitting them, but many of them have an uncomplicated clinical course during the few days that they are in hospital.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe monitored reinfections for the beta and the delta waves and we didn\u2019t see an increase in reinfections over and above what we expect when the force of infection changes, when a wave starts. With omicron, we are seeing an increase in reinfections.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThis virus may be similar to delta in its ability to spread or in being contagious. However, it\u2019s the susceptibility of the population that is greater now because previous infection used to protect against delta and now, with omicron, it doesn\u2019t seem to be the case.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cHowever, we believe that with the reinfections the disease will be less severe and the same would hold for those that are vaccinated. So that would be good news.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Adrian Puren, acting executive director of the NICD:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWhile there are large numbers of cases and evidence of increased hospitalizations, large-scale sequencing would show if this variant is starting to fully displace the delta variant. Current evidence shows that omicron accounts for about 75% of the variants in circulation overall.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIf it does displace the delta variant, we\u2019d need to see if this is the result of immune evasion or because of increased transmissibility.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe had the beta variant, which was more about immune evasion and we had the delta, which was more about increased transmissibility. But reinfection data shows that transmissibility is a major contributor, so we are still trying to see if omicron fits more into immune evasion primarily or more into increased transmission or both. Reinfection data points to immune evasion.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Leon Geffen, a general practitioner in Cape Town\u2019s Sea Point suburb and director of the Samson Institute for Ageing Research:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe are seeing a massive upsurge in the total number of cases,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are mostly presenting with coughs and upper respiratory tract infections.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cMost people I have seen or spoken to have been vaccinated.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Anthony Smith, a general practitioner in Cape Town:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIt was like a tap being turned on from Thursday or Friday last week. It\u2019s been mostly young people, but there have been some older people, probably around 20%.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cMost of the kids have got it at communal events. They are from a younger demographic and presenting with milder symptoms, mainly sore throats and respiratory phenomenon. But, even in older people, it\u2019s been relatively mild.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cNo-one has been even close to being seriously ill. But it\u2019s probably too early to tell if this will be a milder variant.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/543678\/meeting-to-decide-on-new-lockdown-restrictions-for-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meeting to decide on new lockdown restrictions for South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The panicked reaction across much of the world to the omicron variant comes with a scramble for information. In South Africa, the country where omicron was first identified and where cases are jumping, scientists and doctors describe what they are seeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":442284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-543814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543814"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543826,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543814\/revisions\/543826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}