COVID-19 MYSTERY
By Faisal Khan • Issue #26 • View online
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SMALL TALK: What’s behind the mysterious drop in COVID-19 cases in South Africa?
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Despite an increasing number of people getting inoculated on a daily basis — albeit unevenly around the world, new questions about the pandemic arise, making its presence felt. As the U.S, U.K & Israel continue to vaccinate their people in record numbers, regions like the EU lag behind mired in vaccine trust debate. And then there are countries in Africa and other underdeveloped regions that haven’t received even a single shot.
While the first two months of the year have seen somewhat of a uniform decline in infections across most of the globe, we are now seeing a divergent trajectory. The U.S, which is the most affected country by the pandemic is seeing its numbers sharply decline. However, most experts are of the opinion that the rapid vaccination of the people in American may be the reason behind the slowing of the viral infection — they are at a loss to explain the same phenomenon in regions like India, Pakistan, parts of Brazil & most surprisingly South Africa.
Although the prior three are seeing a resurgence of COVID-19 as we speak, the slowdown in South Africa is much more conspicuous — considering this is where the most infections & dangerous variant B.1351 originated last summer. The most logical explanation the epidemiologists can offer in the absence of other factors is whether the population has reached herd immunity. But for that to happen, more than 60–70% of the population needs to be infected.
However, according to the data provided by South African Health authorities, Only about 1.5 million South Africans, around 2.5% of the population, have tested positive for Covid-19. But the actual level of infection could be much higher — owing to limited testing capacities and asymptomatic infections. According to official data, the country has recorded more than 145,000 excess deaths, of which 85% to 95% are likely due to Covid-19.
“Anybody who professes certainty [about why infections started dropping] is lying. There is so much uncertainty in all of this.”
Harry Moultrie, Senior Epidemiologist, SA
One example that gives credence to the herd immunity explanation is the data of blood samples of 4,858 donors for antibodies that SA researchers looked at, in January. They estimated that in the two hardest-hit provinces more than half of people between the ages of 15 and 69 had already had Covid-19. The question remains if those immunity levels are equally high in other parts of the country. Similar results were found to be true in the hardest hit Brazilian town of Manaus, earlier last year.
The biggest challenge that Epidemiologists and virologists face in finding an explanation behind these varying trends, is the true toll of the virus on different populations. Vaccinations, herd immunity, mask mandates, seasonality & adhering to social-distancing guidelines — all could be playing a part in different ways.
In the case of South Africa, very few people have been vaccinated to be playing a major part in the slowdown of the recent infection. Surprisingly, however, the country of 60 million people has seen the Covid-19 infections falling from a record of nearly 22,000 a day to around 1,000, without a large-scale vaccination campaign or stringent lockdown.
Although it remains a mystery in South Africa for now, elsewhere, the focus has shifted to mass vaccination of the global population. But one thing is for sure, there are still a lot of unknowns in this ever-evolving pandemic.
Faisal Khan
Me: People from “older” cultures all know about the value of salt water snorts or sniffles when they start feeling unwell and this miracle cure is passed down from generation to generation, so it makes every sense that the people who live in the countries above, are not adverse to taking variations on my salt water cure and that might explain the reduction of Coronavirus/Covid in those countries.
Coronavirus, is a flu, just the same as Common Flu, Spanish Flu or whatever and it makes absolutely no sense to me to let a potential Coronavirus flu develop into Covid in the body over 14 days, before it is treated with a vaccine, unless that is based on money, as we know it is.
However, even if you have 2 shots of Pfizer or Moderna, you will still get Coronavirus, but it might not develop into Covid, because vaccines are to protect your body but not your head and only then will you discover if your vaccinations protect you, or not and when you have Coronavirus in your head, you become a spreader to everyone else who you come into contact with, just the same as how you got your bout this time around.
If you think the immunization of 100% of the human race is going to stop Covid, you are totally wrong. Coronavirus will continue to evolve and become more difficult to track, through variations and lessening of immunity – because it infects all land species on this planet and can jump from us to them and back again and we can’t inoculate every other species on this planet – hence the problem yet to be determined.
The Salt Water Guy