South Africa, Official says number of children sick with COVID-19 is not cause for panic

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ntsakisi-...

https://english.alarabiya.net/coronav...

Higher hospital admissions among children during a fourth wave

Driven by the Omicron variant

Should prompt vigilance but not panic,

as infections have been mild

Ntsakisi Maluleke, public health specialist, Gauteng province

1,511 COVID-positive patients in hospitals

113 were under 9 years old,

a greater proportion than during previous waves

We are comforted by clinicians' reports that the children have mild disease

Health officials and scientists were investigating what was driving the increased admissions in younger ages

No paediatrics phylogenetic epidemiology yet

They would rather have a child under care for a day or two than having a child at home and complicating, ... but we really need to wait for the evidence

She said many COVID-19 patients in Gauteng reporting non-specific flu-like symptoms,

like a scratchy throat,

as opposed to more easily identifiable markers like a loss of taste or smell

Parents and pregnant women, more hospital admissions recently,

to get tested in case intervention is needed further down the line.

Gauteng's dedicated COVID-19 bed occupancy, 13%

US current surge is delta

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health...

New Jersey Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli

Delta driving the state’s uptick in hospitalizations

I encourage everyone not to be hysterical about what we don’t know about omicron,

but to be really proactive in controlling what we do know,

which is the delta variant is here,

it’s with us,

it’s causing increasing trends

Omicron so far

North America

Canada

United States

South America

Brazil

Europe

Austria

Belgium

Czech Republic

Denmark

England

Finland

France

Germany

Ireland

Italy

Norway

The Netherlands

Portugal

Scotland

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland (suspected cases)

Africa

Botswana

Ghana

Nigeria

Reunion Island (France)

South Africa

Middle East

Saudi Arabia

Israel

Asia and the Pacific

Australia

Hong Kong

India

Japan

Singapore

South Korea

US omicron

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...

Ten confirmed, 5 in New York

NY and Hawaii, community transmission

California, Minnesota, Colorado

India

Two cases

a 66-year-old South African national, been and gone

a 46-year-old, southern city of Bengaluru, had no travel history

Germany

Unvaccinated not allowed in restaurants, cinemas and many shops

Angela Merkel, vaccinations could be mandatory by February

Austria

Compulsory vaccinations from 1st February

UK

Bought 114 million more doses of Pfizer and Moderna

All adults offered a booster by end of January

Omicron cases + 75 = 134

Positivity 0.3% of positive cases

SA (Peter)

https://www.avert.org/professionals/h...

Biggest HIV epidemic in the world

In 2018

7.7 million people living with HIV

240,000 new HIV infections,

71,000 deaths

HIV prevalence now

20.4% of people (one in five) living with HIV

Could be double this

12.6% in Western Cape

27% in KwaZulu-Natal

the omicron variant is associated with substantial ability to evade immunity from prior infection

UK HIV, 2017

https://www.avert.org/professionals/h...

101,600 people living with HIV

People aged 15-74 years, 0.22%

US and HIV

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/statis...

Prevalence, 1.2 million