Quote: 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.
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Maybe it is lower because it is the second infection some had.
Wouldn’t that be inconsistent with the other, related data:
Quote:
“National data show an exponential increase in both new infections and test positivity rates during the first three weeks of this wave, indicating a highly transmissible variant with rapid community spread of infection.”
Maybe "new infection" doesn't mean first infection.
Or they were vaccinated
South Africa has <25% vaccintion rate. "South Africa has a better vaccination rate than most countries on the continent: Just under one-quarter of the population has been fully vaccinated" [1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/world/africa/south-africa...
For what it's worth, the vaccination rate in South Africa is low. It's only around 25% for the original course with little to no boosters done.
Edit: double post, reference edited in above.
Source?
Second infections, on average, have slightly worse outcomes then first infections among the unvaccinated.
https://jim.bmj.com/content/69/6/1253
It's a small sample, but it was done on data available in 2020, which was before vaccines were available.
That link shows most (69%) have similar outcomes. 68.8% -- 19% had worse symptoms and 12.5% had milder symptoms.
Small sample size, but even similar result is somewhat surprising -- I would've thought the 2nd infection would be weaker.
Worth bearing in mind, 19% -> 3 patients, 12.5% -> 2 patients.
Indeed, small sample size!
Went looking for later studies with larger population sizes and found this review https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S204908012...
It's not that much larger -- I guess reinfections are hard to find -- but surprisingly this found that ICU admission was higher for reinfections.
Could it be because we just got slightly better at treating Covid before hospitalization?
How do we treat Covid before hospitalisation? I just caught it at the weekend and feeling pretty crappy. I'm not aware of any particular treatment I should be taking.
This is another problem of the modal Western approach. Few people have any knowledge of mitigating strategies or medications because we've moved so aggressively to eradicate discussion of those things.
We have entire industries and research institutions funded to the tune of billons of dollars doing exactly that, using the very latest technology and scientific techniques. If there were effective treatment strategies that were easily discoverable, It'd have been patented, clinically trialed and be available from a counter near you at an affordable price extremely quickly. If it was cheap or safe enough, whole foods and such places would have shelves full of it. Capitalism is pretty good at that sort of thing, just look at all the vaccines we got in less than a year.
No, what we've done is that some parts of our press have denounced shilling of snake oil that doesn't work. There's no shortage of that shilling still taking place, though.
And as for knowledge, step into a hospital, and you'll see plenty of medications being used to treat actual cases of COVID. Doctors don't just put an oxygen mask on your face, and wait for you to die. You'll find a bit more knowledge there than you will in a deraged InfoWars rant, or a Joe Rogan podcast.
Unfortunately, that knowledge doesn't have 190 million monthly listeners. [1]
[1] If the most popular podcast[2] in America is your definition of 'eradicating' discussion, it's certainly an odd one.
[2] Or, if you're looking for variety in your media, you could always tune in to AM radio. Or the biggest television news syndicate in the world.
Shutting down qanon snake oil like hydroxy-c and ivermectin was sensible and necessary. Also injecting clorox was a bad idea as well. I didn't see any successful "non mainstream" treatments come out there were worth a lick. Certainly acupuncture isn't going to work either.
You seem to be implying that the Eastern approach is better, but the evidence doesn't support that at all.
Sorry, 'Western' was lazy shorthand for 'Western civilization', which covers most places geographically. I meant to exclude from my statement only poorer societies that don't have the luxury of being stupid in their healthcare approach to this disease and time.
There's one approved drug that is probably effective against covid, Fluvoxamine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8633915/
Everyone knows Paxlovid is safe and effective too, but you aren't allowed to take it yet.
"Everyone knows"? Paxlovid was submitted for emergency approval to the FDA just last month.
Fluoxetine as well:
"Fluoxetine use is associated with improved survival of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia: A retrospective case-control study" – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34856085/
"Do the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Antidepressants Fluoxetine and Fluvoxamine Reduce Mortality Among Patients With COVID-19?" – https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
"Mortality Risk Among Patients With COVID-19 Prescribed Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Antidepressants" – https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
"Mortality risk is confirmed to be significantly decreased among patients with #COVID-19 prescribed SSRI antidepressants, and particularly #fluoxetine, and fluoxetine or #fluvoxamine, in a large (n>80,000) US observational study." – https://twitter.com/HoertelN/status/1460309793558646785?s=20
Dr. Farid Jalali's track record on accuracy of statements on the pathophysiology is excellent. Here's a thread that outlines how and why SSRIs work to reduce illness in COVID: https://twitter.com/farid__jalali/status/1440876997182300169
Platelets and serotonin are involved in the disease. Serotonin tends to cause inflammation, clotting, and vasoconstriction. A significant feature of COVID-19 is elevated plasma serotonin. (Here's an almost random source for this: https://twitter.com/ivanajpavlovic/status/146071264917663334... ... another: https://twitter.com/__ice9/status/1345194722055385091 ... these are tweets, yes, but they link to papers.) Platelets have serotonin transporters and serotonin receptors. SARS-CoV-2 does a lot of things; One of the things it does is that it kills platelets by inducing necroptosis (source: https://twitter.com/DrKoupenova/status/1418558896390688776?s... ). This releases the serotonin inside them, causing other platelets to clot. SSRIs block platelets from picking up serotonin produced and secreted by enterochromaffin cells in the digestive tract; This is the source of the platelets' serotonin payload (more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterochromaffin_cell ). If an SSRI is taken early, platelets will have reduced serotonin payloads, which limits the serotonin-induced damage to the lung.
I had no idea about any of this until recently.
Another thing I had no idea about: Serotonin is metabolised by the lungs. https://twitter.com/ablative_sasha/status/144016208428566528... — and COVID-19 damages the lungs. It's a bad feedback loop involving way too much free serotonin.
There are other things at play but this is one of them. SSRIs work for a lot of patients, have a significant and confirmed benefit, and a mechanism of action that makes sense.
I've also seen pretty substantial claims / results that arginine, N-acetylcysteine, and melatonin seem to help. The best way to dig up those scientific results that do exist on it is actually to search Twitter for it. Try to find reliable-seeming scientists that are linking to actual papers and are careful in not suggesting too much.
Monoclonal antibodies, Florida is taking a early treatment approach and you can receive monoclonal antibodies as prophylaxis if you have been in contact with someone who has been infected[0]. Apparently it reduces the risk of death by 70% and the risk of even having symptoms in the first place by 82%.
[0]https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/monoclonal-antibody-therapy...
Budesonide inhaler had amazing results in one early trial, then moderate results in another. I'd get one, very little side effects.
Ivermectin, zinc, vitamin d,c, povodine iodine nasal spray.
In the vast majority of the hospitalized omicron cases in ZA, the finding was secondary and they were in the hospital for some unrelated cause.