Omikron is the virus variant that allegedly “trembles the world”, only in the country of origin South Africa it goes by the very least. The few infected develop a two-day runny nose and a little muscle pain (South African Medical Association: Omikron only has a very mild illness). Noticeable: Many, if not all Omikron carriers have been vaccinated two or three times. Now it turned out that the explosive increase in infections never happened.
At the beginning of the Omikron panic there was an actually inexplicable increase in infections in South Africa. From one morning to the next, cases rose 1,000%. If the numbers had been real, one could understand fear and panic, that would really have been an outbreak never seen before. But like so much in the pandemic, the number was based on mistakes, half-truths or even deliberate lies.
In fact, on that day, 75,000 became “historical”, that is old tests in the systems recorded. Health experts from South Africa describe the incident as “unfortunate, particularly bad timing”:
“It is an effort to be more transparent, and it should be commended. It’s just a case of really bad timing,” he said.
“It is apparent from the NICD weekly reports that antigen tests have been included for some time. But there are issues where some facilities have not been reporting all the negative antigen test results, which then skews the positivity rates at a facility level,” he added.
Moultrie said the impression created by the reporting of the cases just as the announcement was made regarding the discovery of a worrying new variant was “deeply unfortunate”.
Professor Tom Moultrie, director of the Centre for Actuarial Research (CARe) at the University of Cape Town
“It was an effort to be more transparent and it should be commended. It’s just a case of really bad timing, ”he said.
“The weekly NICD reports indicate that antigen testing has been in place for some time. However, there are issues where some facilities did not report all negative antigen test results, which then skewed facility-level positivity rates, ”he added.
Moultrie said the impression made by reporting the cases upon announcement of the discovery of a worrying new variant was “deeply regrettable”.
Professor Tom Moultrie, Head of the Center for Actuarial Research (CARe) at the University of Cape Town
Conclusion: In South Africa, there were not 18,000 new cases in just one daywhich had a massive impact on panic reporting in many nations regarding the “Omicron variant”. One hopes for a correction in various court and system media but in vain.
