New South African research, combined with data on hospitalizations and deaths from the fourth wave of the covid-19 epidemic in South Africa, which is largely due to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, show that the risk of serious disease is lower than that. compared to previous ones.
“This is an epidemiological situation in South Africa: Omicron is behaving in a way that is less serious,” said Cheryl Cohen, a professor at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), one of the authors of the new study.
“Together with our data, this implies a positive picture of reduced severity of Omicron compared to other strains,” Cohen said at a news conference with a team of NICD scientists.
Meanwhile, her colleague, Dr. Waasila Jasat, pointed out that data on covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the current wave of the epidemic in South Africa seem to suggest that the Omicron strain causes less serious disease, but stressed that more work needs to be done in order for scientists to understand the reason.
“The lower risk or lower rates of serious illness we see in the fourth wave may be due to a number of factors, including the level of immunity from the vaccinated or the sick, or it may be due to the inherent infectivity of Omicron,” she added.
“But we need more research to be able to find out these things,” he concluded.
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