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Comment by croes | Hacker News Reader

Don't forget this part: "South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection"

So it could simply be that the mild cases were previously infected, what happens to an unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story.

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South Africa’s excess deaths amount to 1 out of every 200 people. The most vulnerable have already been removed from the sample set.

I’m going to wait for severity data from where I live, because that’s what matters.

Correction: SOME OF the most vulnerable have already been removed from the sample set.

I'm still waiting on proper large scale studies as well, though. It'll probably be at least a week or two until we get that

every year more vulnerable people are added to that set as population ages, gets fatter, has more advanced coronary or metabolic disease, etc.

not trying to contradict here I think it will be less each year.

maybe governments will even start telling people their dirt and exercise choices are exacerbating this disease!

> every year more vulnerable people are added to that set as population ages, gets fatter, has more advanced coronary or metabolic disease, etc.

The number added each season is not necessarily the same number as the ones removed in the previous year - see the prevalence of really bad flu seasons for instance, which occur every 2-3 years or so.

After the pandemic the mortality could be lower for some years because some timed sooner because of COVID. At the same time the "normal" deaths from operations will be added when the postponed operations are rescheduled.

The government will never shame people like that.

Furthermore SA got hit quite badly by Beta. Beta and Omicron are closer than either to Delta, so there may be some immune protection from the prior Beta wave. Beta never got established in Europe/US.

Interesting point hadn't heard made before. Did you notice this yourself or were there epidemiologist analysis on this?

I read it somewhere - sorry can't pull up a source right now, but it made sense to me. Purely speculation at this point of course, but perhaps some solid data will come in.

> unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story.

No it's not, the study specifically mentions "the relative reduction of risk conferred by prior proven COVID-19 infection"

https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room

Infection risk but not hospitalizations risk or death risk. That's what I meant, the previous infection doesn't protect against infection but might prevent severe cases.

The link you specified specifically says that previous infection could be why Omicron appears less severe..

> “Epidemiological tracking shows a steep trajectory of new infections, indicating Omicron’s rapid spread, but so far with a flatter trajectory of hospital admissions, possibly indicating lower severity,” explains Dr Noach. “This lesser severity could, however, be confounded by the high seroprevalence levels of SARS CoV-2 antibodies in the general South African population, especially following an extensive Delta wave of infections.”

When they are saying this is less severe - is that based on ~20% of the country having Covid or ~80%?

There are these estimates that ~80% of SA had Covid.

If so - previous variants were 1/4th as severe - since 3/4ths of the cases went undetected... Right?

South Africa didn't really have many Covid death in any wave because the population is quite young.

Are you suggesting that natural immunity exists and works?

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