The South African health official said yesterday that there has not been even one single case of severe illness from Omicron, and that she was shocked by the world-wide hysteria. Am I missing something here? I don't understand this post.
That is unusual. I usually go with the total/excess deaths to get an accurate view because the western governments are skewing the numbers higher but SA is skewing them lower if you are correct. LOL. We live in a world starved for accurate data.
+223,000 out of close to 60 million is not much of an increase. Do you know what it was over the 5 year ave? I checked ourworldindata.org and the covid deaths and total deaths were looking the same.
Keep in mind that S.A is going through turmoil and a huge crime wave, also, which has effect on mortality. It is kind of like Chicago with the shootings, which is next to me. Chicago is worse than Afghanistan
It is a true 3rd world country. You can legally have a car with flame throwers underneath to fry any would be car jackers LOL. You live near ChIraq? Ouch. Stay safe.
It's really easy to have low case numbers - no testing. Just look at North Korea...
One way of getting a rough idea of lack of testing is the positive % (or case per 1K test). If your positive rate is +10%, no way are you testing enough (you can see that the more testing a country does, the lower the positive % is, the less unexplained excess deaths there are).
People (like Dr. Yan) say it is greatly resistant to monoclonal and vaccinal antibodies. Combining that with much more transmissible is not a good thing.
Yes. If, IF, it really is much milder and much more transmissible it is like a natural vaccine. IF. So far all accounts are that it is much milder. They said that oxygenation of hospitalized patients was 10% as frequent as the previous wave.
It’s a warning to small nations not to cancel orders from Pfizer! You never know when a brand new variant might just show up, like 2 days post order cancellation for instance. Talk about coincidence, it’s enough to make one a conspiracy theorist.
Technically isn’t the vax based on the original wuhan strain? And to be more precise not even that as “they didn’t isolate the virus”. It was computer code sent via email to manufacture mRNA based on what exactly???
The November 25 initial spike was likely a data artifact when they added the antigen tests. But the cases are rising fast, which is concerning.
If Omicron is mild, most people had minimal symptoms and were not tested. The CFR is not as meaningful as the IFR...and we don't know the denominator of infections.
Another confound is the testing rate. If they are testing at a much higher rate than they were before, the rise in "cases" might be another data artifact.
South Africa also has a very high rate of HIV infection, which might increase their fatality rate.
Acknowledging the problems with the current data is even more important. Infection data from the USA is probably among the least accurate in the developed world, and SA is even worse.
There are many problems in Covid-statistics-world. One problem is that data just is not good, not available, not complete etc. Another is that it is manipulated for political purposes, for example deaths overstated, deaths of vaccinated understated etc.
This makes simply figuring out what is going on, extremely difficult and one almost needs a personal analytics department to figure out and connect the dots.
Since I do not have the money to run my own analytical department, I do it myself and share some of my thoughts.
But it is everyone's responsibility to make sure readers understand the limitations of the available knowledge and expertise, how much we all don't know.
Yes. I also hope that I am wrong. Usually when a virus becomes more contagious, it becomes less deadly. For my calculation, I only used deaths and cases from South Africa from the last week and, separately, 3 days.
These numbers are all I have as of now. I do not completely trust them and statistical significance of three days, or a week of South Africa data is not huge. But again this is all I got.
And there in lies the rub. We are trying to make good decisions with bad data. Wish us luck LOL. I'm feeling like a monkey in front of the dartboard "You want me to do what with what?"
There may be other scenarios at play. 1) Drum up a novel corona virus strain in Africa. 2) Target other parts of the world with a bioweapon. 3) Sit back and gorge on popcorn.
News stories say they don't know if the rise in hospitalizations is from the Omicron variant or not. If people were dying at a fast rate there, the media would be all over it--it would be a bonanza for them and they'd be foaming at the mouth, Fauci would be dancing. This is interesting but I think we need more data.
Solid point. The media would be masturbating on the sidewalk if this new variant was this deadly. It would be wall to wall “breaking news” on all the propaganda machines. My guess is that cases skyrocket, deaths fall off a cliff…
Not really, because they also want to push everyone to be vaccinated. And if the jabs no longer work, that's going to grind the jab train to a halt, and make people angry. There are many more considerations than telling the truth about the clot shots at this point in time.
SA is low vaxxed, so Omicron fits right into the campaign to push the vaxx. Before the Omicron announcement there were news stories circulating about the low Covid rate in Africa despite low vaxx rate, so lo and behold, a new scariant and 8 African countries under a travel ban, even though most have zero Omicron cases.
If Omicron is designed purposely in a lab, then it would make perfect sense for it to be more contagious and deadlier to the unvaccinated. Ultimately this is all speculation at this point.
I feel like it would be the same for the vaxxed and unvaxxed (assuming neither with natural immunity) because they both are dealt a virus that can attach and enter their cells. the vaxxed are no better off because the vaccine eludes their old-fashioned spike antibodies, right?
Natural immunity wins the day, and might end up saving lives. i worry about the pacific northwest - I think natural immunity is very low here because we have had ridiculous restrictions since March 2020. I'm thankful that my family just suffered through COVID (it was no picnic for me & hubby - kids of course did great) and have some broad antibodies to various COVID proteins to protect against severe disease even if our spike antibodies don't help anymore. Having this fresh heading into winter season seems ideal, theoretically.... looking on the bright side for my family.
To me, making deadly viruses in a lab does not make sense. But to someone else, it did make sense, and hence we have Covid. If Omicron is also lab designed, we can try to guess its purpose. Our guess could easily be wrong and whoever designed it, is smarter than me, so this limits my capacity to figure it out.
But I need to think to protect myself and my family, so I use all the brains I got.
Is comparing CFR between countries so different a sound approach? Since I understand cases to be positive tests, (correct me if I am wrong) wouldn't different testing rates explain a lot in the difference between CFR? (Smaller denominator, bigger CFR, and visa-versa.) Also, could it be that Omicron is milder and many cases go untested and unrecorded because of mild symptoms?
Just a layman trying to make sense of conflicting signals.
Oh, and I do believe that the government will find a reason to cause panic. I mean why should they stop now?
Cases when talked about in the media or things like Worldometers are just positive tests, but in counting case fatality rate, it means symptoms (clinical diagnosis) plus positive test. There's CFR (case fatality rate is about 1.7%), and IFR (infection fatality rate--.015% with Delta, .02% is either overall or for Alpha, not sure). The low IFR may have to do with PCR testing picking up many false positives.
Re: Clinical diagnosis. I know of one performed last year OVER THE PHONE, and based on one singular symptom (loss of taste). The data needs to be taken as unreliable if not outright fraudulent.
If this is the case then CFR is even more meaningless: it depends on people's access to health care and desire to go to the doctor when sick. I imagine this is highly variable among and even within countries. I suspect it is even variable over time for the same person. For example a person feeling ill year ago in Australia might not have thought twice about going to the doc, may have second thoughts today, knowing that if diagnosed positive he and all his friends will end up in a concentration camp.
I would assume that at the time Omicron was detected it has already been around for awhile. I do not see any jump in deaths in SA or Botswana so I wouldn't expect it to be more deadly. That is just an indication though, and I definitely agree with you that it's too early to call.
I can't help thinking this is a possible trap. It appears convenient that a new variant of concern comes from a country that recently changed their method of testing that amplifies "cases". If so, we have circled back to day 1.
Unless they've changed the process & & incentives dramatically, US #s are pretty useless. When every death is categorized as covid, even when its due to the pseudo-vax, who can tell?
There's no such thing as Covid beyond the mad schemes of megalomaniacs.
Omicron is the absurd sequel to the original fraud. It's being used to pimp fear and drum up more sales for a dangerous product and cover up the mass harm the mRNA injections are causing.
The only thing that told you that you "had Covid" was a bogus PCR test.
What happened in 2020 was simply that the flu was re-branded and repurposed- the term Covid-19 was invented to turn the seasonal virus into the equivalent of the mythical “Al-Qaeda” meaning to terrorize the population with the false construct of a boogeyman.
This was done as the Western economies were in total free fall in late 2019 and the plan to digitize the economies of The West had to be rushed through lest the collapse be seen for what it was- the by-product of decades of Ponzi schemes by the Wall St. parasites and their allies.
The Virus™ is superfluous, just like the Swine Flu scamdemic of 2009. All they needed to do was create the perception of a pandemic/mass panic with staged Hollywood productions, doomsday models, and the fraudulent PCR test to manufacture the cases/falsely attributed as “Covid deaths.”
Fatigue and mild aches for a week or so here. Mid-late 40s, nearly identical symptoms & amplitude, and strong immune systems (polar opposite of germophobes) for both my wife and I. Total loss of taste and smell for a few days towards the end. No other symptoms for us. I can't remember a time when either of us have run a fever since we've been married.
I was 98% normal after 2 weeks, wife probably an extra week to get there. Kids mostly unaffected, except for a very low grade fever with the 15yo for a day or two.
Wife's friend called to tell her that she had tested positive the day after onset for us. We refuse to contribute to the the mass hysteria that is the nearly sole purpose of all this antigen & PCR testing, so never did that. Divine providence had it perfectly coincide with the 2 weeks I was off work for Christmas holiday last year, so I didn't even bother to inform my boss until the new year.
Can say that we've had somewhat suppressed taste and smell from other illnesses before, but this was entirely different for us...total loss.
That said, covid didn't come remotely close to the worst I've ever felt: Flu vaccine in the army. High fever, debilitating aches. Even my skin and hair hurt. Couldn't keep anything down for days. Eventually admitted to base hospital for IV fluids and overnight observation.
I didn't have loss of smell. I had loss of appetite accompanied by a high temperature for a few days. When my appetite returned, everything tasted either strangely sweet or salty. My theory is that my body was preventing me eating to protect me from inflammation, then encouraging me to eat only bland food to prevent digestive upsets, which I'm prone to. I also had a strange brain-foggy sensation accompanied by something like motion-sickness, which I'm also prone to. No cough or loss of breath. I have a strong cardiovascular system. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and bodies have ways of coping with them if we listen to them.
I was back to full strength within a fortnight. Overall, an odd and not particularly pleasant, but not at all scary experience I'm glad to have had. My immune system is likely to be a lot stronger as a result.
I had an illness unlike anything I had ever had before in 2000 for a week- literally couldn't rise out of the bed and was wetting the bed with perspiration. Felt like a giant was sitting on my chest. If that happens when I'm in my eighties might not make it.
Not sure what it was- never went to see a doctor. Haven't had anything since luckily and am an uber healthy person.
Without question what I had would have been called "Covid" circa 2020 if I chose to get tested with a phony PCR diagnostic process.
Covid is a propaganda campaign not a clinical condition.
People will continue to get sick and die ad infinitum.
Enough independent labs have sequenced all the variants to put that claim to rest.
Sarscov-2 was engineered as a bioweapon. In early grant proposals to DARP, Daszak proposed making bioweapons *and* vaccines to fit them. No reason to think this was any different.
I have read (haven't had time to follow thru) of documentary evidence that they actually created the vax (or spike) 1st, & then the virus to fit.
Lack of flu was more likely because sarscov outcompeted flu.
If the pcr test was bogus (lots of false positives) then the CFR would skyrocket! The cfr is bogus but only in the sense that it gives out lots of false negatives; there are many many more people with very mild covid than the statistics show, the CFR for covid is maximum 0.3%, not any higher.
The false positives caused the case rate to skyrocket. Extra false positives lower the CFR by increasing the denominator.
The pct was falsely elevated by running 40+ cycles, 45 in some Euro countries. Fauci admitted to Judy on PBS that over 40 cycles was likely just picking up "signals" from prior infections.
That was another of Fauci's half-truths. The same is true at 35+ cycles...and 30+ cycles.
Estimated by indie researchers at 97% false positives. Accounting for the high percentage of tests in overhigh ranges, they estimate overall 90% false+ rate.
They were conflating exposure remnents (innate immune system knocked out virus before it could enter cells) with actual infections (innate immune overwhelmed, virus replicating in cells).
And as Allen has written, you cannot use pcr to diagnose. That is per the world's leading expert on pct, its inventor, Dr Kary Mullis.
What are the testing criteria for determining Covid 19 positivity in SA and who is deciding & administering these in SA? There has been radio silence on much of Africa for much this "pandemic". Much like Sweden. And much like Sweden, overall they have fared better than the "more advanced" western world (as a whole). Not long ago media started reporting their surprise that Africa was doing better with low vaccination rates than the western world. After all, Africa has only had easy access to HCQ and IVM (along with less processed foods). There was even a quote somewhere from an African official along the lines of they have real diseases to deal with over there like AIDS, HIV, TB, and Malaria, so they don't have time to deal with our imaginary diseases. Is SA the opportunity to get the rest of Africa to buy in? To frighten the rest of us into compliance? The stone cold truth I yet doubt due to the steady stream of misinformation from "trusted government agencies" who have screwed up everything else? I don't know, but these are the thoughts that popped in my head when Omcircon "appeared" in SA and the claim was it is new (some evidence, maybe accurate and maybe not, suggests it has been around a while).
Interesting choice, considering that South Africa itself has stated that they have undercounted Covid-19 deaths thought the pandemic. It seems that they don't trust their own statistic as much as you do.
It's a little early to say. People who have analyzed the spike mutations think it is quite possible there will be undetectable amounts of neutralization from the vaccine and monoclonal antibodies. Just imagine what that would mean.
“ South Africa’s general Case Fatality Rate is about twice higher than in the United States. The most likely explanation for this is that mild illness is not detected or recorded correctly.”
What if South Africa is actually testing properly because they have real problems to deal with, and not just first world problems, so they are unphased by catching a cold?
The statistics and CFR are incorrect. There are many more people who do not get tested, and PCR tests give out false negatives if you have mild covid at the time of test (like just only a headache which majority people get from mild covid). They should do a random antibodies test in the population as they did in Germany beginning 2020:
"A team at the University of Bonn has tested a randomized sample of 1,000 residents of the town of Gangelt in the north-west of the country, one of the epicenters of the outbreak in Germany. The study found that two percent of the population currently had the virus and that 14 percent were carrying antibodies suggesting that they had already been infected — whether or not they experienced any symptoms. Eliminating an overlap between the two groups, the team concluded that 15 percent of the town have been infected with the virus."
I agree that death and case statistics leave much to be desired. I do not think they are very good. That said, I wanted to present an apples-to-apples comparison between Delta and Omicron CFR.
They also said 2-5% CRR for the original covid. If that was true my neighbors would be dropping dead like flies pre-vaccination.
My calculations are that covid is maximum 3 X deadlier than the regular flu, which has a CFR of 0.1%, this makes covid CFR 0.3%. Remember, many people die from the flu too. I have had covid and i can tell you from my experience the flu is worse, though covid did feel like an allergy to me persistent but mild.
Yet there is little evidence to support that statement, some scientists say. “The idea that if we had vaccinated more in Africa, we wouldn't have this: I'd like that to be true, but we have literally no way of knowing,” https://www.science.org/content/article/where-did-weird-omicron-come
Omicron variant was first detected on or about November 9th in Botswana from visitors to their country and to date there have been a "few" confirmed cases (PCR can distiniguish Omicron variant) in USA and many other nations, so the transmissability seems NOT to be high and the illness seen in omicron infected people has been mild. So, where is the basis to make any assumptions at this point about anything omicron. And, pushing vaccines and boosters based on, and designed for Alpha variant may not be a good thing.
The South African health official said yesterday that there has not been even one single case of severe illness from Omicron, and that she was shocked by the world-wide hysteria. Am I missing something here? I don't understand this post.
Was she speaking for the entire country, or for a smaller area?
Don't forget that SA only has had ~90K of Covid-19 deaths, but somehow they have +223K excess deaths...
Excuse me if I have some doubts about their ability to identify infected people...
Supposedly SA was praised for having good Covid statistics. Excess mortality could be due to any reason. All sorts of explanations.
https://www.samrc.ac.za/sites/default/files/files/2021-03-03/CorrelationExcessDeaths.pdf
That is unusual. I usually go with the total/excess deaths to get an accurate view because the western governments are skewing the numbers higher but SA is skewing them lower if you are correct. LOL. We live in a world starved for accurate data.
+223,000 out of close to 60 million is not much of an increase. Do you know what it was over the 5 year ave? I checked ourworldindata.org and the covid deaths and total deaths were looking the same.
Keep in mind that S.A is going through turmoil and a huge crime wave, also, which has effect on mortality. It is kind of like Chicago with the shootings, which is next to me. Chicago is worse than Afghanistan
It is a true 3rd world country. You can legally have a car with flame throwers underneath to fry any would be car jackers LOL. You live near ChIraq? Ouch. Stay safe.
It's really easy to have low case numbers - no testing. Just look at North Korea...
One way of getting a rough idea of lack of testing is the positive % (or case per 1K test). If your positive rate is +10%, no way are you testing enough (you can see that the more testing a country does, the lower the positive % is, the less unexplained excess deaths there are).
People (like Dr. Yan) say it is greatly resistant to monoclonal and vaccinal antibodies. Combining that with much more transmissible is not a good thing.
Unless more transmissible and very mild. Then it is an excellent thing.
Yes. If, IF, it really is much milder and much more transmissible it is like a natural vaccine. IF. So far all accounts are that it is much milder. They said that oxygenation of hospitalized patients was 10% as frequent as the previous wave.
https://twitter.com/reddeadonwine1/status/1466243206824267781?s=21
Neither do I. We have been through that kind of thinking at least twice and the bean counting was just hysteria that started the lockdowns.
The chances that sars-cov-2 brings 2% CFR are as close as Ferguson providing a correct model in his lifetime.
Zero.
It’s a warning to small nations not to cancel orders from Pfizer! You never know when a brand new variant might just show up, like 2 days post order cancellation for instance. Talk about coincidence, it’s enough to make one a conspiracy theorist.
You do know that the current mRNA 'vaccines' (Pfizer, Moderna, etc.) are for the Alpha variant, that does not exist anymore?
Technically isn’t the vax based on the original wuhan strain? And to be more precise not even that as “they didn’t isolate the virus”. It was computer code sent via email to manufacture mRNA based on what exactly???
The initial paper & pcr tests were based on a theoretical sequencing provided by China.
The virus - including variants - has long since been isolated & sequenced by a number of labs ww.
Aah, but fpizer has said not to worry...rhey are making a vax just for omicron!
That fpizer announcement is what made me immediately suspect this was the next stage manufactured bioweapon.
The November 25 initial spike was likely a data artifact when they added the antigen tests. But the cases are rising fast, which is concerning.
If Omicron is mild, most people had minimal symptoms and were not tested. The CFR is not as meaningful as the IFR...and we don't know the denominator of infections.
Another confound is the testing rate. If they are testing at a much higher rate than they were before, the rise in "cases" might be another data artifact.
South Africa also has a very high rate of HIV infection, which might increase their fatality rate.
I think it's too early to set our hair on fire.
I agree that we need to wait for more data and redo or calculations. But is also worthwhile to try to get useful information as early as possible.
More data would be good.
Acknowledging the problems with the current data is even more important. Infection data from the USA is probably among the least accurate in the developed world, and SA is even worse.
There are many problems in Covid-statistics-world. One problem is that data just is not good, not available, not complete etc. Another is that it is manipulated for political purposes, for example deaths overstated, deaths of vaccinated understated etc.
This makes simply figuring out what is going on, extremely difficult and one almost needs a personal analytics department to figure out and connect the dots.
Since I do not have the money to run my own analytical department, I do it myself and share some of my thoughts.
But it is everyone's responsibility to make sure readers understand the limitations of the available knowledge and expertise, how much we all don't know.
Agreed. Seems like Igor is making a lot of assumptions to get to this conclusion. Let's hope he is wrong.
Yes. I also hope that I am wrong. Usually when a virus becomes more contagious, it becomes less deadly. For my calculation, I only used deaths and cases from South Africa from the last week and, separately, 3 days.
And you trust those numbers?
These numbers are all I have as of now. I do not completely trust them and statistical significance of three days, or a week of South Africa data is not huge. But again this is all I got.
And there in lies the rub. We are trying to make good decisions with bad data. Wish us luck LOL. I'm feeling like a monkey in front of the dartboard "You want me to do what with what?"
But if you're not sure if you can clearly see the board, maybe you should wait another minute before throwing?
There may be other scenarios at play. 1) Drum up a novel corona virus strain in Africa. 2) Target other parts of the world with a bioweapon. 3) Sit back and gorge on popcorn.
We will see what happens. So far they seem to be underplaying it.
News stories say they don't know if the rise in hospitalizations is from the Omicron variant or not. If people were dying at a fast rate there, the media would be all over it--it would be a bonanza for them and they'd be foaming at the mouth, Fauci would be dancing. This is interesting but I think we need more data.
I agree that we need more data! And I hope that the future data will prove me wrong.
Solid point. The media would be masturbating on the sidewalk if this new variant was this deadly. It would be wall to wall “breaking news” on all the propaganda machines. My guess is that cases skyrocket, deaths fall off a cliff…
Not really, because they also want to push everyone to be vaccinated. And if the jabs no longer work, that's going to grind the jab train to a halt, and make people angry. There are many more considerations than telling the truth about the clot shots at this point in time.
SA is low vaxxed, so Omicron fits right into the campaign to push the vaxx. Before the Omicron announcement there were news stories circulating about the low Covid rate in Africa despite low vaxx rate, so lo and behold, a new scariant and 8 African countries under a travel ban, even though most have zero Omicron cases.
If Omicron is designed purposely in a lab, then it would make perfect sense for it to be more contagious and deadlier to the unvaccinated. Ultimately this is all speculation at this point.
I feel like it would be the same for the vaxxed and unvaxxed (assuming neither with natural immunity) because they both are dealt a virus that can attach and enter their cells. the vaxxed are no better off because the vaccine eludes their old-fashioned spike antibodies, right?
Natural immunity wins the day, and might end up saving lives. i worry about the pacific northwest - I think natural immunity is very low here because we have had ridiculous restrictions since March 2020. I'm thankful that my family just suffered through COVID (it was no picnic for me & hubby - kids of course did great) and have some broad antibodies to various COVID proteins to protect against severe disease even if our spike antibodies don't help anymore. Having this fresh heading into winter season seems ideal, theoretically.... looking on the bright side for my family.
Why would that make sense?
To me, making deadly viruses in a lab does not make sense. But to someone else, it did make sense, and hence we have Covid. If Omicron is also lab designed, we can try to guess its purpose. Our guess could easily be wrong and whoever designed it, is smarter than me, so this limits my capacity to figure it out.
But I need to think to protect myself and my family, so I use all the brains I got.
Tobin from see-en-en here. Thanks for the sidewalk idea. Zoom was getting to be boring.
MSM needs a new crisis as their ratings are in the toilet.
Is comparing CFR between countries so different a sound approach? Since I understand cases to be positive tests, (correct me if I am wrong) wouldn't different testing rates explain a lot in the difference between CFR? (Smaller denominator, bigger CFR, and visa-versa.) Also, could it be that Omicron is milder and many cases go untested and unrecorded because of mild symptoms?
Just a layman trying to make sense of conflicting signals.
Oh, and I do believe that the government will find a reason to cause panic. I mean why should they stop now?
Cases when talked about in the media or things like Worldometers are just positive tests, but in counting case fatality rate, it means symptoms (clinical diagnosis) plus positive test. There's CFR (case fatality rate is about 1.7%), and IFR (infection fatality rate--.015% with Delta, .02% is either overall or for Alpha, not sure). The low IFR may have to do with PCR testing picking up many false positives.
Re: Clinical diagnosis. I know of one performed last year OVER THE PHONE, and based on one singular symptom (loss of taste). The data needs to be taken as unreliable if not outright fraudulent.
If this is the case then CFR is even more meaningless: it depends on people's access to health care and desire to go to the doctor when sick. I imagine this is highly variable among and even within countries. I suspect it is even variable over time for the same person. For example a person feeling ill year ago in Australia might not have thought twice about going to the doc, may have second thoughts today, knowing that if diagnosed positive he and all his friends will end up in a concentration camp.
Yes
Also instead of earlt tteatment, sending people home until they can't breathe & then forcing remdezivir & vents on them.
In normal times, 50% of patients that go on a vent don't come off alive.
(Meant to say IFR is even more meaningless.)
Pretty sure there's absolutely no way to even attempt this kind of analysis yet. Just to give 2 impossible to reconcile confounders:
1. WHO indicates no confirmed deaths from MORONIC yet. https://www.newsmax.com/us/covid-omicron-infections-south-africa/2021/12/03/id/1047293/
2. The massive spike in cases from SA coincides precisely with a change to include rapid test results as cases.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-omicron-absurdities-continue
I would assume that at the time Omicron was detected it has already been around for awhile. I do not see any jump in deaths in SA or Botswana so I wouldn't expect it to be more deadly. That is just an indication though, and I definitely agree with you that it's too early to call.
I can't help thinking this is a possible trap. It appears convenient that a new variant of concern comes from a country that recently changed their method of testing that amplifies "cases". If so, we have circled back to day 1.
Also see:
https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/my-opinion-on-the-new-african-variants
and an interesting prior analysis of SA:
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/south-africas-tale-of-covid-19-medicine
Unless they've changed the process & & incentives dramatically, US #s are pretty useless. When every death is categorized as covid, even when its due to the pseudo-vax, who can tell?
There's no such thing as Covid beyond the mad schemes of megalomaniacs.
Omicron is the absurd sequel to the original fraud. It's being used to pimp fear and drum up more sales for a dangerous product and cover up the mass harm the mRNA injections are causing.
The only thing that told you that you "had Covid" was a bogus PCR test.
What happened in 2020 was simply that the flu was re-branded and repurposed- the term Covid-19 was invented to turn the seasonal virus into the equivalent of the mythical “Al-Qaeda” meaning to terrorize the population with the false construct of a boogeyman.
This was done as the Western economies were in total free fall in late 2019 and the plan to digitize the economies of The West had to be rushed through lest the collapse be seen for what it was- the by-product of decades of Ponzi schemes by the Wall St. parasites and their allies.
The Virus™ is superfluous, just like the Swine Flu scamdemic of 2009. All they needed to do was create the perception of a pandemic/mass panic with staged Hollywood productions, doomsday models, and the fraudulent PCR test to manufacture the cases/falsely attributed as “Covid deaths.”
One more thing that told me that I had Covid was loss of smell.
Fatigue and mild aches for a week or so here. Mid-late 40s, nearly identical symptoms & amplitude, and strong immune systems (polar opposite of germophobes) for both my wife and I. Total loss of taste and smell for a few days towards the end. No other symptoms for us. I can't remember a time when either of us have run a fever since we've been married.
I was 98% normal after 2 weeks, wife probably an extra week to get there. Kids mostly unaffected, except for a very low grade fever with the 15yo for a day or two.
Wife's friend called to tell her that she had tested positive the day after onset for us. We refuse to contribute to the the mass hysteria that is the nearly sole purpose of all this antigen & PCR testing, so never did that. Divine providence had it perfectly coincide with the 2 weeks I was off work for Christmas holiday last year, so I didn't even bother to inform my boss until the new year.
Can say that we've had somewhat suppressed taste and smell from other illnesses before, but this was entirely different for us...total loss.
That said, covid didn't come remotely close to the worst I've ever felt: Flu vaccine in the army. High fever, debilitating aches. Even my skin and hair hurt. Couldn't keep anything down for days. Eventually admitted to base hospital for IV fluids and overnight observation.
I didn't have loss of smell. I had loss of appetite accompanied by a high temperature for a few days. When my appetite returned, everything tasted either strangely sweet or salty. My theory is that my body was preventing me eating to protect me from inflammation, then encouraging me to eat only bland food to prevent digestive upsets, which I'm prone to. I also had a strange brain-foggy sensation accompanied by something like motion-sickness, which I'm also prone to. No cough or loss of breath. I have a strong cardiovascular system. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and bodies have ways of coping with them if we listen to them.
I was back to full strength within a fortnight. Overall, an odd and not particularly pleasant, but not at all scary experience I'm glad to have had. My immune system is likely to be a lot stronger as a result.
Loss of smell happens for numerous conditions- particularly what was once called pneumonia.
Yeah but I did not have pneumonia
I had covid and it was unlike any illness I've ever had. It's real, and it's nasty. I wish I could be as sure as you that it's all a flu fraud.
I had an illness unlike anything I had ever had before in 2000 for a week- literally couldn't rise out of the bed and was wetting the bed with perspiration. Felt like a giant was sitting on my chest. If that happens when I'm in my eighties might not make it.
Not sure what it was- never went to see a doctor. Haven't had anything since luckily and am an uber healthy person.
Without question what I had would have been called "Covid" circa 2020 if I chose to get tested with a phony PCR diagnostic process.
Covid is a propaganda campaign not a clinical condition.
People will continue to get sick and die ad infinitum.
Enough independent labs have sequenced all the variants to put that claim to rest.
Sarscov-2 was engineered as a bioweapon. In early grant proposals to DARP, Daszak proposed making bioweapons *and* vaccines to fit them. No reason to think this was any different.
I have read (haven't had time to follow thru) of documentary evidence that they actually created the vax (or spike) 1st, & then the virus to fit.
Lack of flu was more likely because sarscov outcompeted flu.
If the pcr test was bogus (lots of false positives) then the CFR would skyrocket! The cfr is bogus but only in the sense that it gives out lots of false negatives; there are many many more people with very mild covid than the statistics show, the CFR for covid is maximum 0.3%, not any higher.
The false positives caused the case rate to skyrocket. Extra false positives lower the CFR by increasing the denominator.
The pct was falsely elevated by running 40+ cycles, 45 in some Euro countries. Fauci admitted to Judy on PBS that over 40 cycles was likely just picking up "signals" from prior infections.
That was another of Fauci's half-truths. The same is true at 35+ cycles...and 30+ cycles.
Estimated by indie researchers at 97% false positives. Accounting for the high percentage of tests in overhigh ranges, they estimate overall 90% false+ rate.
They were conflating exposure remnents (innate immune system knocked out virus before it could enter cells) with actual infections (innate immune overwhelmed, virus replicating in cells).
And as Allen has written, you cannot use pcr to diagnose. That is per the world's leading expert on pct, its inventor, Dr Kary Mullis.
There's no "if's" about it. PCR can't diagnose anything. It is not a test it is a manufacturing process.
There's no such thing as "Covid"- you have been brainwashed via a mass propaganda campaign to believe there is.
It's as real as the phony "War on Terror."
The CFR for "Covid" is zero. But they did kill hundreds of thousands of elderly people through improper medical protocols and black box medications.
The CFR is accurate when you have severe covid, but with very mild covid it gives out false negatives.
That makes no sense. The CFR doesn't give out positives or negatives.
What are the testing criteria for determining Covid 19 positivity in SA and who is deciding & administering these in SA? There has been radio silence on much of Africa for much this "pandemic". Much like Sweden. And much like Sweden, overall they have fared better than the "more advanced" western world (as a whole). Not long ago media started reporting their surprise that Africa was doing better with low vaccination rates than the western world. After all, Africa has only had easy access to HCQ and IVM (along with less processed foods). There was even a quote somewhere from an African official along the lines of they have real diseases to deal with over there like AIDS, HIV, TB, and Malaria, so they don't have time to deal with our imaginary diseases. Is SA the opportunity to get the rest of Africa to buy in? To frighten the rest of us into compliance? The stone cold truth I yet doubt due to the steady stream of misinformation from "trusted government agencies" who have screwed up everything else? I don't know, but these are the thoughts that popped in my head when Omcircon "appeared" in SA and the claim was it is new (some evidence, maybe accurate and maybe not, suggests it has been around a while).
It is always a problem, in the Covid world, as to whom to trust and whom to mistrust.
That's why I chose South Africa's statistics as opposed to Bill Gates sponsored newspapers vaccine propaganda.
Good choice, indeed.
Interesting choice, considering that South Africa itself has stated that they have undercounted Covid-19 deaths thought the pandemic. It seems that they don't trust their own statistic as much as you do.
I am very intrigued. Watching this unfold with interest.
Yeah. I don’t think so. Omicron is nothing.
It's a little early to say. People who have analyzed the spike mutations think it is quite possible there will be undetectable amounts of neutralization from the vaccine and monoclonal antibodies. Just imagine what that would mean.
We will see how this will end up. In one-three weeks we will have much more solid data from South Africa.
Hopefully it means everyone gets it, it’s mild, and we can stop this merry go round.
“ South Africa’s general Case Fatality Rate is about twice higher than in the United States. The most likely explanation for this is that mild illness is not detected or recorded correctly.”
What if South Africa is actually testing properly because they have real problems to deal with, and not just first world problems, so they are unphased by catching a cold?
Good questoin for sure
If there is one thing we have learned this last 2 years: no testing - not cases.
I call it the Ostrich school of diagnostic medicine.
I truly hope it doesn’t come to these numbers.
I would be DELIGHTED if I end up being wrong!!!
The statistics and CFR are incorrect. There are many more people who do not get tested, and PCR tests give out false negatives if you have mild covid at the time of test (like just only a headache which majority people get from mild covid). They should do a random antibodies test in the population as they did in Germany beginning 2020:
"A team at the University of Bonn has tested a randomized sample of 1,000 residents of the town of Gangelt in the north-west of the country, one of the epicenters of the outbreak in Germany. The study found that two percent of the population currently had the virus and that 14 percent were carrying antibodies suggesting that they had already been infected — whether or not they experienced any symptoms. Eliminating an overlap between the two groups, the team concluded that 15 percent of the town have been infected with the virus."
https://timenewsdesk.com/2020/04/antibody-test-in-german-town-shows-15-infection-rate/
I agree that death and case statistics leave much to be desired. I do not think they are very good. That said, I wanted to present an apples-to-apples comparison between Delta and Omicron CFR.
They also said 2-5% CRR for the original covid. If that was true my neighbors would be dropping dead like flies pre-vaccination.
My calculations are that covid is maximum 3 X deadlier than the regular flu, which has a CFR of 0.1%, this makes covid CFR 0.3%. Remember, many people die from the flu too. I have had covid and i can tell you from my experience the flu is worse, though covid did feel like an allergy to me persistent but mild.
Yet there is little evidence to support that statement, some scientists say. “The idea that if we had vaccinated more in Africa, we wouldn't have this: I'd like that to be true, but we have literally no way of knowing,” https://www.science.org/content/article/where-did-weird-omicron-come
We will know in a few days.
Omicron variant was first detected on or about November 9th in Botswana from visitors to their country and to date there have been a "few" confirmed cases (PCR can distiniguish Omicron variant) in USA and many other nations, so the transmissability seems NOT to be high and the illness seen in omicron infected people has been mild. So, where is the basis to make any assumptions at this point about anything omicron. And, pushing vaccines and boosters based on, and designed for Alpha variant may not be a good thing.