Excess deaths remain flat in South Africa, sparking hope omicron fuels only mild disease

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Excess deaths across South Africa have not risen sharply despite a huge wave of Covid-19 omicron infections, according to new data released on Wednesday evening.

The figures further raise hopes that the highly mutated omicron variant may be milder than other forms of the virus – although experts warned that this may not help the NHS.

Between November 29 to December 4 – just as South Africa’s omicron wave is thought to have started – national excess deaths across the country were already 21 per cent that expected based on data from 2014 to 2019.

From the 5th to the 11th December – after the country’s omicron wave was declared – excess deaths rose only slightly, to 23 per cent above the average.

This is significant because excess deaths is a measure of the number of people who have died during a given crisis, irrespective of the cause, compared to that which could have been expected under “normal” conditions. It is considered a “gold standard” to assess the overall impact of a disease.

“This is another piece of the puzzle. It’s not virological evidence. It’s not clinical evidence. But it does ultimately suggest that omicron is causing a more mild form of the disease,” Professor Thomas Moultrie, a demographer at the University of Cape Town, told The Telegraph.

“Excess deaths in Gauteng province [the epicentre of the outbreak] remain at almost negligible levels. There is still no strong excess natural mortality signal from Gauteng.

“There has been extensive speculation as to whether there has been a decoupling between infections, hospitalisations and deaths and while we might still benefit from a few more weeks of data, the evidence is certainly pointing that direction,” he said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/excess-deaths-remain-flat-south-africa-sparking-hope-omicron

By Justgivemepositivenews Team