COVID spike in South Africa

dqhall said:

An NBC news video reports what is happening in S. Africa with the omicron variant (2 minutes 43 seconds):
Covid-19 hospitalizations rising in South Africa’s omicron hot spot

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Thankfully they Don't view ventilators as the only trustworthy 'therapy'

royal priest said:

Thankfully they Don't view ventilators as the only trustworthy 'therapy'

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Thankfully, no hospital in the world views ventilators as the only trustworthy therapy.

sfs said:

Thankfully, no hospital in the world views ventilators as the only trustworthy therapy.

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They did in the beginning....which is why, I believe, so many died in NY.....who still have the highest ratio of deaths per cases..

Good ol' media hoping to milk this for what it's worth to them and not us. Must be why NBC subtly put in a disclaimer to their hype.
'In a statement Sunday, the WHO cautioned against drawing conclusions about a link between the omicron variant and the increase in hospitalizations.'

In reality it is being called a storm in a teacup by the doctor who sounded the alarm so to speak

S.African doctor says patients with Omicron variant have "very mild" symptoms

mandatory boosters will be forthcoming.

RaymondG said:

mandatory boosters will be forthcoming.

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Here is the point. This variant is milder (especially for those already vaccinated) but has the ability to spread much faster. Could not the end result be a quickened herd immunity? This seems to be the first sign of the virus putting itself in check as others have done in the past.

timothyu said:

Here is the point. This variant is milder (especially for those already vaccinated) but has the ability to spread much faster. Could not the end result be a quickened herd immunity? This seems to be the first sign of the virus putting itself in check as others have done in the past.

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As much as we get herd immunity to the common cold, yes...

RaymondG said:

They did in the beginning....which is why, I believe, so many died in NY.....who still have the highest ratio of deaths per cases..

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Well, yeah, before they knew what therapies worked they didn't know what therapies work. What does that have to do with Omicron or South Africa?

timothyu said:

Here is the point. This variant is milder (especially for those already vaccinated) but has the ability to spread much faster.

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We really do not know whether the variant is milder. There have been repeated anecdotal reports over the course of the pandemic about the virus becoming less virulent, and so far they've all been wrong. Let's wait until we have decent data on the subject.

sfs said:

Let's wait until we have decent data on the subject.

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Decent early data

timothyu said:

Decent early data

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Um, you just linked to a video of someone (quite knowledgeable) saying repeatedly that we have no data on whether the variant is milder or not. Which is what I said and you disagreed with.

sfs said:

Um, you just linked to a video of someone (quite knowledgeable) saying repeatedly that we have no data on whether the variant is milder or not. Which is what I said and you disagreed with.

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You covered a 30 minute vid in 11 minutes? Admirable. I did say early data. What of the article about the doctor who sounded the alarm?

Rand Paul yesterday
“You know, when a government bureaucrat has the audacity, the arrogance, to say they represent all of science, we should be running the other way,” he said. “And it conjures up images of the medieval church, in their repression of science. Science has nothing to do with having obedience to any kind of government dogma. And you have to realize that most of what Fauci talks about isn’t science. He’s not talking about a study on this or a study of that. He’s talking about wear a mask. But when you talk about the peer-reviewed studies of masks, there was one done in Denmark showed that it didn’t work.”

“When you look at all of Sweden, 1.8 million children have not been wearing masks for the last two years. They’ve had zero COVID deaths,” Paul continued. “And you say, well, have the teachers been infected? Well, it turns out the teachers are infected at the same rate as the rest of the public. So, they’ve had no masks for a year, year and a half. And it has worked. And that’s a whole country. And there’s no real discussion of this because if you questioned him, and really that’s public policy, that’s not science. Its public policy backed by some science. But if you question him, somehow you are questioning science because he represents all science. That is incredibly arrogant.” More

timothyu said:

You covered a 30 minute vid in 11 miutes?

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Yes. I ran it at 1.75x speed and skipped bits here and there that weren't relevant -- this is stuff I do for a living, so there's not a lot new here to me. I heard him say at least three times that we don't have any data on whether Omicron makes people more or less sick than earlier forms of the virus. If you disagree, point out where he says that the Omicron causes milder disease.

United Nations
While Biden accused predecessor Donald Trump of racism, “xenophobia,” and other epithets last year for limiting travel from countries experiencing high numbers of Chinese coronavirus cases, Biden banned travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi last week while on an extended five-day vacation in upscale Nantucket.
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“These restrictions are unjustified and unfairly discriminate against our country and our Southern African sister countries,” Ramaphosa continued, urging Biden and others to “urgently reverse” travel bans.

“The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant,” Ramaphosa asserted, citing the W.H.O.’s opposition to such bans.

Lazarus Chakwera, the president of Malawi, accused Biden and other leaders enacting travel bans of “Afrophobia” in a Facebook post on Sunday.

“[Chinese coronavirus] measures must be based on science, not Afrophobia,” Chakwera wrote, referring specifically to the travel bans by the United States and the West as “uncalled for.”

The W.H.O. regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said in a statement this week that travel bans “place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods” and urged “scientifically based” policies, instead.

Prior to becoming president, Biden appeared to agree with these sentiments. Following Trump’s initial ban on travel from China in early 2020 to slow the spread of Chinese coronavirus, Biden ranted on Twitter that the policy reflected “hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.” Biden later accused Trump of enacting an “African Ban” explicitly “designed to make it harder for black and brown people to immigrate to the United States.” More

Objectivity as of Nov 28th

RaymondG said:

They did in the beginning....which is why, I believe, so many died in NY.....who still have the highest ratio of deaths per cases..

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It has to do with the common respiratory pandemic playbook.

And contrary to what the flat-earthers say, ventillators have saved lives. Just not enough lives, unfortunately.

FireDragon76 said:

It has to do with the common respiratory pandemic playbook.

And contrary to what the flat-earthers say, ventillators have saved lives. Just not enough lives, unfortunately.

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Yes, they definitely save lives...and prolong deaths. Apparently they were used too soon and too often in the beginning. Very few people survived after being put on them....the very mention of them was a death sentence in the beginning.... Yet the cause of death was always attributed to covid. Deaths have dramatically decreased since then....NY just took the brunt because they were the first to really be affected.

RaymondG said:

Yes, they definitely save lives...and prolong deaths. Apparently they were used too soon and too often in the beginning. Very few people survived after being put on them....the very mention of them was a death sentence in the beginning.... Yet the cause of death was always attributed to covid. Deaths have dramatically decreased since then....NY just took the brunt because they were the first to really be affected.

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Most of the people put on ventilators in the beginning were in poor health and weren't going to survive, anyways. The ventilator was their best shot at living, however remote that was.