Leading scientists cautioned that the level of immunity against the coronavirus among South Africa’s population due to earlier infections may be masking the severity of illness caused by the Omicron variant.
“That is important to keep at the back of our minds when we see what is unfolding in SA and what we might see in other settings, which might have a very different epidemiology.”Official statistics don’t reflect the extent of the pandemic’s impact on SA, with just 3.2-million positive tests and about 90,000 deaths. Excess deaths, a measure of mortality compared with a historical average, show about 275,000 people may have died from the disease.
“We’re going to have to tease apart if the mild cases are due to young people getting infected or if the previous population immunity from infection and vaccination are responsible for decreasing the number of hospitalised individuals.” “That could be due to the fact that immunity in the country is high either from natural immunity, from past infection or from vaccinations,” Barry Schoub, chairperson of the ministerial advisory council on vaccines, said in an interview with Sky News.While Omicron has, in early studies, shown it can evade antibodies produced by vaccinations or previous infections more easily than previous variants, Madhi said immunity may stem from protection by T-Cells, which kill infected cells.
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