Sylvie Claire / November 28, 2021
People infected in South Africa with the new variant of the Omicron coronavirus are not seriously ill at the moment, although research remains limited at this stage. This was reported by the president of the South African Doctors' Association, Angelique Coetzee, on the British channel BBC.
The patients' main complaints are sore muscles and fatigue, extreme fatigue, she said. We see it in the younger generation, not in the elderly. This variant would not require immediate hospitalization of patients. What we need to worry about now is that when older, unvaccinated people are infected with this new variant, they may develop a severe form of the disease, added Angelique Coetzee. On the other hand, if so far the symptoms are rather unusual, they are however mild, she added to the British daily Telegraph. Dr. Coetzee was the first South African doctor to alert the authorities to the existence of this new variant on November 18. She had been alerted by the rather unusual symptoms presented by some of her patients.
They complained of extreme fatigue but did not mention the loss of taste or smell. Their symptoms were so different and milder than what I had experienced before, she reported. To date, only 24% of citizens have been fully vaccinated in South Africa.