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“ The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases, of which 78,000 were attributed to omicron, showe

“ The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases, of which 78,000 were attributed to omicron, showed that risk of hospital admissions among adults who contracted covid-19 was 29 percent lower than in the initial pandemic wave that emerged in March 2020.” 29% LOWER THAN OG COVID In other words, a bad cold or the flu. This is possibly our way out of this mess if it can become the dominant strain, why are we still peddling fear about omnicron instead of hope?

jedimastert 5y ago
If we peddle hope in the wrong way, it'll give people an excuse to not get the vaccine or the boosters.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  If you lie, or omit the truth and get caught, they will never listen to anything you say ever again.
  - vkou 5y ago
    I wish the antivaxx/snake oil/it's just the flu folks were held to that standard.
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      I don't think you'd believe anything they would have to say, would you? Either way, if you are a public health official you have to be held to a higher standard than a guy with Facebook account.
      - bink 5y ago
        They are held to a higher standard. That's why they aren't making assumptions based on such limited data. They're being cautious until enough data is gathered to make an informed decision.
      - vkou 5y ago
        > I don't think you'd believe anything they would have to say, would you? Hundreds of millions of people, many of them with the power to set policy do believe them. Strangely enough, that belief seems to fall along a political divide. Most of those people have long made up their mind to 'never listen to anything you (the health authorities) say ever again'. The lines in the sand were drawn ~March 2020, when the politicians picked their sides, and ever since then, it's not clear to me that any amount of data has changed anyone's mind since then.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      some countries are making that happen. They are making people who refuse to get vaccinted pay for their hospitalization rather than it being free. The USA should definitely do the same thing.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > If you lie, or omit the truth and get caught, they will never listen to anything you say ever again. Hydroxychloroquine. Ivermectin. Yeah, right. Peddling the lies have cause these individuals to get more trust. People want their false hope and false cures, and snake oil.
    - bananabiscuit 5y ago
      The only studies that ever showed these 2 drugs to be ineffective were run on already hospitalized patients. There are plenty of small studies that showed these 2 drugs to have an effect in early treatment, but curiously, no large CRT studies that look at the effectiveness of these drugs in early treatment. Guess it’s not that important to know how many lives these drugs can save when nobody stands to make any money of off them.
      - Nursie 5y ago
        > nobody stands to make any money of off them. LOL. Because Ivermectin and HCQ somehow aren't Big Pharma products? Hilarious.
        bananabiscuit 5y ago
        Because they are out of patent.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        So is Dexamethasone, except you know... Dexamethasone works vs COVID19 and isn't snake oil. Why don't you research the RECOVERY trial? They tested plenty of cheap medicine, and some of it even worked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECOVERY_Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECOVERY_Trial There's no reason to believe in the snake oil salesmen. Just look at the good research that was done and pick out the actually useful stuff with positive results.
skrebbel 5y ago
> a bad cold or the flu If Covid was only 40% worse than the flu and the cold, then this wouldn't have been a pandemic at all. Also, one thing that possibly distorts this study is that a large amount of South Africans got only vaccinated in recent months. Given that the vaccine is most effective in the beginning, this might positively affect South Africans's resilience against Omicron and it's not clear yet (afaik) to what extent that skewed the stats.
nostrademons 5y ago
COVID is about 10x more lethal than flu across all age ranges, so if this is 29% lower than the original strain, it's still 7x more deadly than flu.
- emtel 5y ago
  I think this is false for < 13. Everything I’ve seen shows flu to be worse in that age group. Edit: after looking at sources again I’m no longer quite as confident that flu is significantly worse, but covid is definitely not 10x worse for kids: https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true

jedimastert 5y ago

If we peddle hope in the wrong way, it'll give people an excuse to not get the vaccine or the boosters.

willcipriano 5y ago
If you lie, or omit the truth and get caught, they will never listen to anything you say ever again.
- vkou 5y ago
  I wish the antivaxx/snake oil/it's just the flu folks were held to that standard.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    I don't think you'd believe anything they would have to say, would you? Either way, if you are a public health official you have to be held to a higher standard than a guy with Facebook account.
    - bink 5y ago
      They are held to a higher standard. That's why they aren't making assumptions based on such limited data. They're being cautious until enough data is gathered to make an informed decision.
    - vkou 5y ago
      > I don't think you'd believe anything they would have to say, would you? Hundreds of millions of people, many of them with the power to set policy do believe them. Strangely enough, that belief seems to fall along a political divide. Most of those people have long made up their mind to 'never listen to anything you (the health authorities) say ever again'. The lines in the sand were drawn ~March 2020, when the politicians picked their sides, and ever since then, it's not clear to me that any amount of data has changed anyone's mind since then.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    some countries are making that happen. They are making people who refuse to get vaccinted pay for their hospitalization rather than it being free. The USA should definitely do the same thing.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > If you lie, or omit the truth and get caught, they will never listen to anything you say ever again. Hydroxychloroquine. Ivermectin. Yeah, right. Peddling the lies have cause these individuals to get more trust. People want their false hope and false cures, and snake oil.
  - bananabiscuit 5y ago
    The only studies that ever showed these 2 drugs to be ineffective were run on already hospitalized patients. There are plenty of small studies that showed these 2 drugs to have an effect in early treatment, but curiously, no large CRT studies that look at the effectiveness of these drugs in early treatment. Guess it’s not that important to know how many lives these drugs can save when nobody stands to make any money of off them.
    - Nursie 5y ago
      > nobody stands to make any money of off them. LOL. Because Ivermectin and HCQ somehow aren't Big Pharma products? Hilarious.
      - bananabiscuit 5y ago
        Because they are out of patent.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        So is Dexamethasone, except you know... Dexamethasone works vs COVID19 and isn't snake oil. Why don't you research the RECOVERY trial? They tested plenty of cheap medicine, and some of it even worked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECOVERY_Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECOVERY_Trial There's no reason to believe in the snake oil salesmen. Just look at the good research that was done and pick out the actually useful stuff with positive results.

skrebbel 5y ago

> a bad cold or the flu If Covid was only 40% worse than the flu and the cold, then this wouldn't have been a pandemic at all. Also, one thing that possibly distorts this study is that a large amount of South Africans got only vaccinated in recent months. Given that the vaccine is most effective in the beginning, this might positively affect South Africans's resilience against Omicron and it's not clear yet (afaik) to what extent that skewed the stats.

nostrademons 5y ago

COVID is about 10x more lethal than flu across all age ranges, so if this is 29% lower than the original strain, it's still 7x more deadly than flu.

emtel 5y ago
I think this is false for < 13. Everything I’ve seen shows flu to be worse in that age group. Edit: after looking at sources again I’m no longer quite as confident that flu is significantly worse, but covid is definitely not 10x worse for kids: https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true