Thomas Johnson - Medical Blog

Nineteen doctors wrote an open letter appealing to President Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately end the "hard" lockdown. They say the social suffering experienced by people is worse than the coronavirus pandemic. The doctors are all from UCT's medical school class of 1993. Their "letter’s argument was informed by extensive discussions and sharing of experiences and evidence from our WhatsApp class group with doctors working in South Africa and around the world". It's astounding so-called experts - economists, doctors, Wits academics - without having information, want to end the lockdown. Do they not have the evidence we have, tentative as it is? This behaviour is bizarre. Scientists are worrying about a second and third wave, and the UN said the coronavirus will be with us for a long time. What do the 19 advise patients who have other communicable diseases (Covid-19 is one) like measles, chicken pox, HIV or TB? Go forth and multiply? They, who proudly pu...

Reproduced below is the epilogue from The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. It's still relevant today with the emergence of SARS, H1N1 and the novel coronavirus (2019): The emergence of AIDS, Ebola, and any number of other rainforest agents appears to be a natural consequence of the ruin of tropical biosphere. The emerging viruses are surfacing from ecologically damaged parts of the earth. Many of them come from tattered edges of tropical rain forest, or they come from tropical savanna that is being settled rapidly by people. The tropical rain forests are the deep reservoirs of life on the planet, containing most of the world's plant and animal species. The rain forests are also its largest reservoirs of viruses, since all living things carry viruses. When viruses come out of an ecosystem, they tend to spread in waves through the human population, like echoes from the dying biosphere. Here are the names of some emerging viruses: Lassa. Rift Valley. Oropouche. Rocio...

Except for once in a blue moon now, I stopped reading The Conversation 18 months ago after they banned me. It wasn't for uncivil or hate speech, but because I took issue with a (white) University of Johannesburg writer's smarmy, made-up fallist word that only he understood (it says a lot about their editorial policy that they permit poor syntax in support of their political agenda) and for objecting after they removed my critical comments. (They chastise commentators but allow writers limitless freedom in articles and comments.) I was already irritated by poor writing, reasoning and indicative research of South African academics and researchers published there and often said so, which they wouldn't have liked. The Conversation's motto is "academic rigour, journalistic flair", but they published tabloid clangers like (Wits University academic) aliens didn't help build the pyramids (really!), and from another Wits academic, (white) hipsters are guilty o...

Herd immunity Writing in The Conversation, Wits University academics present a plan to end South Africa’s lockdown and “save the economy”: “Mitigate the rapid spread of the virus, while allowing for natural immunity in the population to increase gradually.” Is this the discredited herd immunity in another guise? I assume the authors are experts, but here they're promoting a quack proposal. MIT Technology Review : “Assuming people who get sick do become immune, we have no idea how long they’ll stay immune. Second, assuming they stay immune, we have no idea how long it would take to reach herd immunity.' These are inter alia because of unknowns: how contagious is coronavirus (estimates vary but very); how many infected so far and asymptomatic infections (we don't know to both).  “Strengthen health care systems to ensure optimal treatment for as many patients as possible, both those with Covid-19 and those with other serious illnesses.” How? There is nothing t...

In this post two weeks ago (also see here ) I wrote the Western Cape Health Department and WC government were not prepared for the coronavirus pandemic. In this interview in BizNews  Dr. Ross Hofmeyr, an anaesthesiologist at Groote Schuur Hospital  and University of Cape Town Medical School, said, “We’ve been slowly and steadily making preparations which been accelerating over the last few weeks (emphasis added)”. Few weeks, .i.e. two or three, and no rush. Only now? A month ago, shortly after the first reported case in South Africa, the WC government and WCHD boasted about their preparedness. At the time I questioned that and remarked why only at Tygerberg Hospital. I was right. The article's title “forewarned is forearmed” is misplaced because it appears GSH and WCHD have been sleeping on the job. They've had a month to do this not counting the fact the country as a whole, like the west, rested on their laurels while the virus made its inexorable ...

I was a patient at a Groote Schuur Hospital's medical outpatient clinic from August 2018 to October 2019, visiting roughly every six months. In July 2018 its ER referred me there for further management of an acute medical condition. At each visit I told the specialist – the professor head of department I saw the first and only time – and registrars I believed the condition was a symptom, an indication of something else that was going on. Like late 2017 when I attended the ER for acute vertigo following prolonged flu. They never diagnosed the underlying condition and discharged me. When it reoccurred over the following three months, I went to a private specialist who immediately diagnosed it and prescribed treatment (I haven’t had it since).  He said the flu had had a “cascade effect” and exacerbated the underlying problem.  This time the condition, which presented from nowhere and was distressing, also coincidentally followed prolonged flu.   ...