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Omicron: Is racism why South African evidence of milder infection was ignored? - BBC News
Jan 20, 2022 2 mins, 2 secs

"It seems like high-income countries are much more able to absorb bad news that comes from countries like South Africa," said Prof Shabir Madhi, a vaccine expert at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.

Prof Salim Karim, former head of the South African government's Covid advisory committee and vice-president of the International Science Council agrees.

By early last month, scientists and doctors here were already sharing anecdotal evidence indicating that Omicron, while highly contagious, was resulting in far fewer hospital admissions or deaths than the Delta wave.

The virus is evolving to adapt to the human host, to become like a seasonal virus," said Prof Marta Nunes, senior researcher at the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics department of the University of Witwatersrand.

We've seen a very low mortality rate," said Prof Karim, who pointed to the latest data showing hospital admissions were four times lower than with Delta, and the number of patients requiring ventilation was similarly reduced.

Excess deaths in South Africa during the pandemic now sit at 290,000 - or 480 per 100,000 people - which is more than double the UK figure.

The figure of 290,000 excess deaths has not been confirmed as an accurate reflection of the pandemic's toll in South Africa.

Half of them occurred during the Delta wave, but, so far, only 3% transpired during the Omicron wave, said Prof Madhi.

South Africa's government declined to introduce tighter restrictions during the Omicron wave and bitterly criticised foreign governments for their initial imposition of strict travel bans from the region.

I'd refer to it as a convalescent phase," said Prof Madhi.

Prof Madhi also expressed concern that mixed messages about South Africa's growing success in fighting the pandemic could "really diminish confidence in vaccines [despite the fact that] we know vaccines prevent severe disease"?

Although South Africa lags far behind countries like the UK in terms of vaccination rates, at least three-quarters of the population now enjoys significant protection from a combination of prior infections and vaccinations?

Prof Karim acknowledged that Omicron's high transmissibility was causing temporary problems for countries like the US, but, citing South Africa's own experience, he said "the good thing is that because [the infection rate] has gone up that fast, it'll go down that fast too, so the pressure on hospitals will be much less"?

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