Doctor: Omicron patients have 'mild symptoms'

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A South African doctor who treated about thirty patients with the new mutant Omicron confirmed that she had noticed "mild symptoms" in patients who had been convalescing without having to be hospitalized at the present time.

Over the past 10 days, Angelique Coetzee, who also chairs the South African Medical Association, has received those patients who tested positive for COVID but with unusual symptoms.

"What made them come to my clinic" in Pretoria "was very tired," she told AFP.

Most of the cases were men under the age of 40, just under half of them received the vaccine, and some showed symptoms of low fever.

Coetzee alerted the health authorities on November 18 that this "clinical case does not correspond to the mutated delta" that was prevalent in South Africa.

South African researchers announced on November 25 that they had detected the B.1.1.529 mutant, which the World Health Organization called the next day omicron, with multiple and potentially highly contagious mutations.

"I'm not saying there will be no serious symptoms, but at the moment even the patients we've seen who haven't been vaccinated have mild symptoms," she added.

And she continued, "I am convinced that many people in Europe are infected with this virus, but it has not been detected much because we have been observing the symptoms of the mutated Delta."

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