Louis Rossouw @lrossouw Twitter profile

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

South Africa has had 37,875 cases reported today. These cases are mostly from earlier this past week. Below a breakdown of these cases by Specimen Received Date. Mostly from Friday and Thursday.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

So Omicron also reached me. Lucky with very mild symptoms (if I can call it that). 2nd Pfizer just over 3m ago plus another mild case in March this year.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases in SA tonight looks like this if you use specimen received date, add allowance for late reporting and then smooth using a 7-day moving average.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases in Gauteng appear to have reached a peak of about 10,100 per day on 6 Dec on 7-day moving average basis. Cases are now about 8,000 per day on average.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

In SA cases looks like this after including the 37k cases reported yesterday. These are allocated by specimen received date below and I apply a moving average to smooth the weekly patterns. Case growth is steeper than last week but still has slowed down vs. November.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

The above means in R in Gauteng has dropped below 1.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

COVID-19 cases in South Africa continue to increase. The 7-day moving average now crossed 3,000 per day. Cases are increasing in all provinces.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases in South Africa are still growing but appear to be slowing down some more. The 7-day moving average is at 21,389 per day, the highest to date. However, the NICD suggests that further late reported cases may be included in coming days.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

In South Africa COVID-19 cases, admissions and hospital deaths appear to be increasing again. Figures are still relatively low. Note that admissions and hospital deaths are by date reported (not date of occurrence).

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases are still growing rather rapidly in SA with the 7-day moving average now exceeding 5,000 cases per day.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

The above are nationally. In Gauteng it looks like this. Not as big a difference, but Gauteng might still be increasing and we don't know if further late reported cases are to be expected.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

In Gauteng daily cases may be flattening out. Tshwane might have peaked. Cases are at 2,717 per day after peaking at 2,852 per day (7-day moving averages). Wave 3 peaked at 3,210 per day.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

The 7-day moving average (by specimen received date) of COVID-19 cases in South Africa has reached a peak of just over 22k cases per day on 12 December. The current figure is about 19,500 per day.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases in Gauteng are still levelling off. Left the total cases in the province and right the cases by district. Tshwane's highest case count on 7-day moving average was 2,871 on 3 Dec. Currently at 2,725 (9 Dec).

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

The delays due to IT issues at NICD was clearly not in line with normal reporting delays and thus exceed my estimates for typical reporting delays. My updated R calculations are still running and will post a thread later on those but some trends may change based on this.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases still climbing in SA as a whole. This log scale chart shows how cases was under 300 per day under 30 days ago. Now cases are 15 500 per day on average over last 7 days and still climbing. Growth in cases appear to be slowing.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases continue to grow in SA, but at a slower rate. 7-day moving average is at 16,500 but the most recent 3 days individual cases are above 20,000 (though these days of the week are traditionally the highest).

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

COVID-19 Cases in South Africa are stilling growing rather rapidly. The last 7-day period averaged over 27,000 cases per day by specimen received date. The highest ever.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Maybe third time is the charm… Not feeling too bad. But clearly COVID-19 is not over in London despite what the many people not wearing masks may think.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

I allow for late reported cases every day. Below I plot my estimates for SA cases based on data available up to yesterday (red). The blue (reported up to tonight) clearly exceeds that. Mostly on Thursday and earlier this week.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Looks like after wrinkles of holidays and late reporting had been sorted out the downward trend in cases is still intact in SA:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2 estimated from cases in SA is back near 1. This is after observed increases in a number of provinces. A short thread but details are available here:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

On a 7-day moving average basis cases in Gauteng has now surpassed the peaks of both 1st and 2nd waves. Currently ~7 700 per day and rising.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

In Gauteng cases are still levelling off. Tshwane cases are relatively flat with a slight increase in most recent days.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

5 years

Great article explaining the issues linking blockchain to physical assets. Same applies to other financial assets as well. Want to create a dollar backed cryptocurrency? You will have to trust someone to keep the real 1:1. Shares on blockchain? Need to trust the issuer anyway.

CoinDesk

@CoinDesk

5 years

The promises made for blockchain are a pipe dream that is unsubstantiated and misleading, says Farzam Ehsani.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

@zilevandamme I can assure Hudson/PANDA do not speak for most actuaries. Most of us try to work with other professionals and value their input to help us make sense of the epidemic too. See work of the @COVID19actuary that I hope may restore your confidence in actuaries as an example.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

After allowing for cases reported this evening the recent trend in SA cases look as follows. One can see the last day of cases has shown a jump to 25,800 cases per day over the last 7-days on average. If we ignore that we see slower growth in SA cases other wise.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

South African cases slowed their descent a little. My estimate tries to adjust for late reporting and public holidays, which is difficult to do this time of year. 7-day moving average at 14,400 per day.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Cases are rising in South Africa. 7-day moving average of cases at 1700 and rising with over 3000 reported tonight.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

SA has also surpassed the peak of all previous waves on a 7-day moving average of cases by specimen received date. Just under 22k per day over last 7-days. Previous peak was 19,650 in 3rd wave.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Worth a read

Tom Moultrie (@tom-moultrie.bsky.social)

@tomtom_m

2 years

A series of mini-thoughts for a Sunday afternoon. South Africa vs. Rest of the World - the Omicron Edition. 1) We are pretty confident that Gauteng, the province at the South African Omicron epicentre is past its peak in terms of proportion of tests returning positive.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

The 7-day moving average of COVID-19 cases in South Africa continues to decline after peaking at 22,006 on 12 Dec 2021. Currently the moving average is at 8,275 per day.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

I've recently updated my reproduction number (R) estimates to also include data at a District Municipality level in SA. I've greyed out areas with lots of uncertainty, though other regions with low populations or low cases may still be volatile.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

I was holding off on tweeting again in the hope that this is a blip but it does seem to be that we are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases in South Africa again. 7-day moving average of cases below (on a log scale). We are up from less than 300 cases per day to over 500 again.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Recent reporting appears to be slowing down, so some of the above may be due to reporting. You will notice more cases are reported longer days after their reporting date. My allowance for late reporting is adaptive and will pick this up as the pattern stabilises.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

@AdamJKucharski I did some maths on booster shots in a high-income country vs sending those extra shots to a low-income country. Could save 11x more lives in the low-income country. Details here:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Given the announcement by the NICD to discontinue daily COVID-19 reporting I quickly jotted some thoughts on two years of COVID-19 calculations.

Two years of COVID-19 calculations

This week the NICD announced that they are stopping the production of daily reporting with regard to COVID-19 in SA. This may well mean that my (mostly) daily estimates of the reproduction number may...

unsupervised.online

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Yay!

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

#vaccinated 2 jabs in

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Gauteng cases appear to be continuing to level off. Tshwane is reducing slightly.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

@Tuliodna @tomtom_m I have put the 18,000 cases to the date of specimen received date in the above analysis. Most of them pre-date Nov 2021. So should not be a factor.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R by province looks like this. Gauteng is in range 1.19 - 1.34. All other provinces are above 1.5 and some even above 2 still.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R in SA now in the range 1.25 - 1.50 mainly due to Gauteng.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Good thread about virulence of Omicron. I would add that previous wave had limited vaccination at the start compared to now in SA. So that's a another reason for apparent change in severity.

David Fisman

@DFisman

2 years

There's some potentially very positive news coming out of South Africa on limited virulence associated with omicron. If that proves true it'll be absolutely excellent news. I think it's always a good idea to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R in South Africa has reduced similarly to a range of 1.13 - 1.24.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

The impact on R is that the R in SA is now in the range 1.46 - 1.81 higher than what I estimated before (It was 1.25 - 1.50 last time I tweeted).

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2 for South Africa is currently 0.9 [0.90 - 0.96].

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases in North West has also reached a peak of just 1,292 per day and are now 1,191 per day. R is just touching 1.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 continues to rapidly fall in South Africa. It's estimated at 0.9 on average over last 7 days That's bellow 1! Four provinces (including most populous provinces) are below 1.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Cases in South Africa continue to rise driven mainly by an increase in cases in Gauteng. R in that province is over 1.80 as measured by cases by specimen received date. Link to detailed daily update in my profile.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

We need to get these numbers up!

sugan naidoo

@sugan2503

3 years

Vaccines per day in SA Vaccine numbers were already on the decline and the long weekend has not helped. You can see how much the average had dropped over the last week.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Not great news tonight at all. Cases are rising again in all provinces. The reproduction number looked like it may decrease but it turned around sharpish. The 7-day moving average of cases by specimen received date will likely break the all time high in days.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

I wanted to add this chart. Blue shows cases by specimen received date reported up to tonight. Red line is an addition for late reporting I add to adjust that. In the next couple of days those estimates will be replaced by correct numbers.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

SA COVID-19 model updated: I have not tweeted about it in some time. So as a reminder the model is calibrated to 90% of excess deaths from the MRC (up to 16 January). Attack rate and predicted deaths shown in charts below (blue - model)

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Have had to dust off the passport for the first time in a long time. On my way!

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Daily COVID-19 cases in SA continues to rapidly grow.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

By province that R is broken up as follows. Most provinces still high (but have reduced). Gauteng is however low in range 1.06 - 1.22

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

In a new blog for the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group I cover new research on the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in developing countries and it's potential implications for understanding the pandemic in such countries:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Tonight Gauteng 7-day moving average of cases 5,107 already exceeds the peak of the first wave (4,785) and are still rising:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Ran some R estimates for UK based on cases and deaths up to 18 Dec on a consistent basis as my South African numbers. These are the results. R is estimated based on cases and deaths. R is highest in London based both on cases and deaths. Updating these tomorrow.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R is above 1 in all provinces other than Limpopo. So cases are rising rapidly in most provinces.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R in Tshwane is still above 1 at roughly 1.1. Johannesburg at 1.2 and other districts at ~1.5.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Because Gauteng makes up a large portion of total cases in South Africa, cases countrywide are also slowing, currently just under 23,000 per day.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The effective reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 is near 1. Currently estimated at 1.00 [0.99 - 1.02]. This is as a 7-day moving average of cases by specimen received date reached what appears to be a peak on 3 July.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Clearly caution is required as these patterns may shift depending on the quantity of further backlogs to be loaded. So keep that in mind. More details here:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

So cases are still increasing very rapidly in SA. SA cases on a 7-day moving average is now 15,800 by specimen received date.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases are still rising in South Africa. Last night over 8 500 cases were reported. If we break the cases up by specimen received date and allow for some late reporting we probably had just under 6,000 cases on the 30th and the 7-day moving average is at 3,862.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Cases in South Africa continue to climb. The 7-day moving average exceeding 2 000 per day today (chart below on log scale). This 7-day moving average peaked at +/- 19 500 per day in the 2nd and 3rd waves.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Update on vaccine efficacy of Pfizer in South Africa against Omicron variant.

Mia Malan

@miamalan

2 years

BREAKING [Thread]: 1. SA’s first real-world data on #Pfizer ’s #COVID19 jab’s protection @ #Omicron infection + hospitalisation via @Discovery_SA + @MRCza Note: This is data from the 1st 3 weeks of the outbreak, so it might change - regard it as preliminary real-world data

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The 7-day moving average of daily cases continue to decline in South Africa. We will soon revert to levels of daily cases only seen leading into the first wave. Link to the analysis in my profile should you want to see more.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The only way invemectim could assist the fight against COVID-19. Healthy horse means you can get to the drive through vaccination site. 🤣

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

@BallouxFrancois In SA you need to look at cases by specimen received date, allow for late reporting of cases and also do a moving average to remove the noise. This is what it looks like after doing that:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

There is some concern that today's reporting is quite low, so will continue to monitor. If reporting delay is changing my method should re-calibrate as the pattern emerges.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

KwaZulu-Natal is seeing on average just over 3,000 cases per day on average over last 7 days and cases are growing there with R in range 2.05 - 3.36. Western Cape also growing.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

I suspect we will see more volatility next week with public holiday on 16th, as well as the summer holidays starting. South Africans tend to travel to coastal towns and cities.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Updated results here:

Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

In SA cases looks like this after including the 37k cases reported yesterday. These are allocated by specimen received date below and I apply a moving average to smooth the weekly patterns. Case growth is steeper than last week but still has slowed down vs. November.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Daily case rates by province. No commented needed. See my profile if you need to see more.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Table Mountain, Lion's Head and even Robben Island looking very photogenic this afternoon.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

My allowance for late reported cases now looks like this. This may be conservative (as it's projecting forward some of the late reporting from yesterday) but may also be too little if there is more to come.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

When comparing ratios of admissions and deaths to cases it is encouraging to note that crude ratios since 1 April (assumed start of Wave 5 for now) do not appear worse to those during Wave 4. Early days yet though as admissions for recent cases have not had time to happen yet.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

The effective reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa is hovering just above 1 [1.00 - 1.04] as estimated from reported cases.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Great thread to think about severity of Omicron.

James Ward

@JamesWard73

2 years

Another week, another long thread on omicron. This time, I’m still concerned, but perhaps a bit less worried than I was – mainly because I’m starting to be more confident that our experience of omicron will be significantly milder than earlier covid waves. 🧵

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

I estimate R based on cases and deaths in Canada. R based on cases peaked at about 2 in Canada but has reduced. R based on deaths had not moved which is encouraging. Details:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R in Tshwane is in range 0.9 - 1 (i.e. just below 1). Other parts of Gauteng (other than Johannesburg) is still high but have reduced.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Excess deaths in South Africa. A short thread. Firstly thanks to the work of the @MRCza @tomtom_m and his fellow authors for starting this project very early on in the epidemic and continuing it. Source here:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

4 years

@PanData19 @JeroenSwart @KRDinCT What false positives? Out of 600k tests run in NSW, Australia the positive rate is 0.0372%. If we had a massive issue of false positive problem it would surely show up there?

Health Nerd

@GidMK

4 years

Worth noting that this represents 607,559 COVID-19 tests with 226 positives, giving a positive rate of 0.0372% Even if EVERY TEST was a false positive, that gives a specificity of ~99.96%

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Great response from @AlastairMcA30 to a dubious article on vaccine hesitancy

Mail & Guardian

@mailandguardian

3 years

Paediatrician Alastair McApline says that the reasoning Angelo Ryan uses to justify this position in an M&G opinion piece is ‘specious and flawed’.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

I see many wondering why the cases are possibly slowing down. I just want to point out that we are pretty much at levels never seen before, so I'd hope they slow down soon.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Update on the reproductive number (R) of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa. R remains below 1 for all provinces in South Africa. R estimated from cases is at 0.6 for SA as a whole.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases by province has peaked or is probably close to peaking in all provinces at this time.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

@jburnmurdoch @miamalan One thing I see as confounding is that it's the first time that SA is entering a wave with significant numbers of people vaccinated. So comparisons of age mix in hospital in prior waves need to allow for that. Not sure how big an effect that plays.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

This puts R estimated from cases between 1.65 - 2.15. Levels are similarly high in all provinces. My profile contains a link to more detailed charts and figures.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Cases are slowing in MP, LP and NW, but still growing in other provinces.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

Cases have been rising in Gauteng but is also rising in other provinces now. R in Gauteng above 2 but also near 2 for Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and Western Cape.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

I hope my allowance for late reported cases are conservative, and that these case numbers for specimen received date 13 Dec reduce as the week progresses as the allowance is removed. I also have built in allowance for public holidays.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

Lots more details here:

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

@dariusm11 @VirusesImmunity You want to vaccinate young people in the US while old people in other countries are unvaccinated. If the world shares vaccines more fairly less people will die in total.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

R continuing to rise in South Africa. It's approaching 1 again.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

3 years

COVID-19 cases in South Africa are still growing but at a slightly slower rate. In the last couple of days. We have just under 15k cases per day over the last 7 days which is above the peak for the 1st wave but still short of the peak of the 2nd wave.

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Louis Rossouw

@lrossouw

2 years

R values in Gauteng have come down as well. The province is at 1.45 [1.31 - 1.63]. Tshwane is at 1.20 [1.11 - 1.30]

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