{"id":915938,"date":"2022-01-13T12:49:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T12:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/news\/2022\/01\/13\/covid-19-omicron-variant-less-aggressive-fewer-deaths-but-be-on-your-guard-expert\/"},"modified":"2022-01-13T12:49:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T12:49:23","slug":"covid-19-omicron-variant-less-aggressive-fewer-deaths-but-be-on-your-guard-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/13\/covid-19-omicron-variant-less-aggressive-fewer-deaths-but-be-on-your-guard-expert\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 Omicron variant less aggressive, fewer deaths but be on your guard &#8211; expert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/60f98f51-316c-5c98-a9c4-25c7aa1ff3bf&#038;operation=CROP&#038;offset=0x52&#038;resize=1198x674.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div><!--sse--><\/p>\n<p>Pretoria &#8211; The Covid-19 infection rate during the fourth wave was as high as in previous waves, but there were significantly fewer deaths and a smaller proportion of people required hospitalisation.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to clinical risk expert Dr Jacques Snyman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The medical adviser to Health Squared Medical Scheme said: \u201cFrom scheme data, we could see there were many people testing positive but few were so ill that they needed to be admitted to hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Snyman added that the scheme\u2019s members who were vaccinated demonstrated significantly better protection against severe illness.<\/p>\n<p>Barely a handful of mostly older people with comorbidities were hospitalised in the fourth wave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"RelatedArticlescss__StyledRelatedArticles-sc-10g88yu-0 ezIKFV\">\n<h2><span>MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThis indicated that the vaccine is still providing strong levels of immunity, and protection against severe disease even if infection was caused by the Omicron variant. Although breakthrough cases have been recorded, vaccination remains the best available means of protection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Snyman pointed out that during the fourth wave, nationally, the percentage of people testing positive and hospital admissions peaked during mid-December, and has been sharply declining since.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the first, second and third waves, about 20% of the patients hospitalised with Covid-19 passed away, but this reduced to around 10% of admitted patients in the fourth wave.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>He said this could suggest that despite the Omicron variant being more transmissible \u2013 hence the steep curve in infections in December \u2013 this variant may be less virulent or \u201caggressive\u201d than the original Beta or Delta variants dominating previous waves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs more people choose to be vaccinated, fewer people are at risk of developing severe illness. We should not underestimate the proportion of the population who were infected in previous waves \u2013 even if they did not necessarily experience symptoms \u2013 and may have developed natural immunity, providing some protection now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should, however, not let our guard down because it is impossible to accurately predict what may happen in future, and how other variants may influence the course of the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>He also reminded that a possible fifth wave may be on the cards.<\/p>\n<p><strong id=\"strong-1cde6d89d3e57a0d002f60666206fd31\">Related Video:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><strong id=\"strong-96a7dceef4224244d9f10ea8a3421533\">Pretoria News<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pretoria &#8211; The Covid-19 infection rate during the fourth wave was as high as in previous waves, but there were significantly fewer deaths and a smaller proportion of people required hospitalisation. This is according to clinical risk expert Dr Jacques Snyman. The medical adviser to Health Squared Medical Scheme said: \u201cFrom scheme data, we could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}