My favourite take on omicron today came from Financial Times reporter John Burn-Murdoch:
Later, Burn-Murdoch wrote about what he's seen and heard. It's an incisive article that ultimately does leave the reader with some cautious optimism.
In the epicentre in Pretoria on December 2, only 9 of the 42 patients with covid needed oxygen. The remainder had tested positive but were asymptomatic and being treated for other conditions.
In the Gauteng province just 8% of patients are being treated in the ICU, down from 23% in the delta wave. Many of those in South African hospitals have covid but are there for other reasons, skewing the data and offering a reminder that numbers are only as good as the context to go with them.
One worry now is that because of the fast spread, even moderate illness could overwhelm hospitals, particularly in the developing world.
