December 10, 2021

expert reaction to South African hospital surveillance report from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa has published their latest COVID-19 hospital surveillance update.

Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:

“Trying to take South Africa data on severity and extrapolate to UK is tricky.  The demographics are different and the vaccine coverage is different.  The UK will unlikely play out according to anything seen in South Africa.

“The picture here will depend on where infection occurs (e.g. if younger people then less of a worry – if older unvaccinated then more problem).”

https://www.nicd.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/COVID-19-HOSPITAL-SURVEILLANCE-UPDATE_WEEK-48-2021_rev.pdf

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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