A sign at the Cape Town International Airport is for a Covid-19 test.
The World Health Organization cautioned that it is difficult to determine if the Covid variant is less severe than previous strains of the virus because omicron has not spread widely among the populations most at risk.
The variant of Covid that causes milder illness is encouraging, but the variant has mostly beeninfecting younger people so far.
The population it affected so far is the younger, so we all want this disease to be milder. Mahamud said that they don't know how it behaves in the elderly population.
There is not enough data to determine how omicron affects people over 60, who have underlying medical conditions, and the unvaccinated. I think we should not over interpret the data coming from South Africa.
The executive director of the WHO health emergencies program said that many people in South Africa have an immunity to previous infections. It would look milder in a population where many people do not have the same type of immune protection as omicron.
It is not clear whether the increase in hospitalizations is from omicron or delta. He said that more data will emerge soon on how omicron is impacting people in older age groups.
Ryan said that the omicron wave has not been fully established in the broader population. I am a little nervous to make positive predictions until we see how well the vaccine protects older and more vulnerable people.
Ryan said that omicron can still produce high levels of hospitalizations because it spreads so quickly. Omicron spreads faster than any other variant of Covid, according to the WHO.
Ryan doesn't think anyone knows how this will play out. We need to suppress transmission of the two different versions of the virus until we know what the impact is on older people.
Scientists from South Africa studied hospital admissions at a large hospital in Tshwane and found that omicron caused less severe disease than past waves of infections.
Covid deaths at the hospital were 4.5% during omicron compared to 21.3% in past waves, while admissions to intensive care units were 1% during omicron compared to 4.3% in past waves. The first wave of the virus in South Africa required supplemental oxygen for 99.5% of patients.
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that omicron causes less severe disease than the delta variant. Fauci warned against being lulled into a false sense of security, noting that it is unclear how omicron will impact countries with different demographic groups.
