South Africa says omicron-driven fourth Covid wave 'has passed'

The South African government has said data suggests the country had passed its omicron peak in a fourth Covid wave without a major rise in deaths.

South Africa eased restrictions meant to stop the spread of coronavirus even as the percentage of people testing positive for the disease exceeded 20 per cent for the 19th straight day.

The government lifted a curfew that was in place from midnight to 4am with immediate effect and allowed establishments selling alcohol to operate beyond 11pm. Wearing of masks in public will remain mandatory, according to a statement.

“All indicators suggest the country may have passed the peak of the fourth wave at a national level,” Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said in emailed statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Thursday. He cited a drop in new cases for the week ending December 25th and the availability of hospital beds.

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“The speed with which the omicron-driven fourth wave rose, peaked and then declined has been staggering,” said Fareed Abdullah of the South African Medical Research Council. “Peak in four weeks and precipitous decline in another two. This omicron wave is over in the city of Tshwane. It was a flash flood more than a wave.”

The rise in deaths over the period was small, and in the last week, officials said, “marginal.”

Some scientists were quick to forecast the same pattern elsewhere.

Omicron, bearing dozens of troubling mutations, was first identified in Botswana and South Africa in late November. It rapidly became dominant in South Africa, sending case counts skyrocketing to a pandemic peak averaging more than 23,000 cases a day by mid-December, according to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University.

As of last week, omicron appeared in 95 per cent of all new positive test samples that were genetically sequenced. It has spread to more than 100 countries, infecting previously vaccinated and previously infected people, and its proliferation has strained hospitals and thinned workforces in countries like the United States and Britain.

In South Africa, overall case counts have been falling for two weeks, plummeting 30 per cent in the past week to an average of less than 11,500 a day. Confirmed cases declined in all provinces except Western Cape and Eastern Cape, the data showed, and there was a drop in hospitalisations in all provinces except Western Cape.

There are many caveats, howeever. The case figures might have been distorted by reduced testing during the holiday season. And many people in the most affected area had some measure of immunity, either from vaccination, prior infection or both, that might have protected them from serious illness.

However, research teams in South Africa, Scotland and England have found that omicron infections more often result in mild illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus, causing fewer hospitalisations.

South African officials last week ended tracing efforts and scrapped quarantine for people who were possibly exposed but not experiencing symptoms. – Agencies