The Omicron coronavirus variant is spreading faster in Gauteng, the epicentre of SA’s latest outbreak, than the Delta strain or any of the earlier mutations, an adviser to the provincial government said.
This is the “strongest acceleration in community transmission ever seen in South Africa”, Bruce Mellado said in a presentation on Thursday. This is “consistent with dominance of a variant that is more transmissible”, he added.
SA announced the discovery of a new variant, later named Omicron, on November 25, as cases began to spike and the strain spread across the globe. National daily cases almost doubled on Wednesday, days after countries across the world halted flights to and from Southern Africa.
Previous infections and the fact that about a quarter of South Africans are fully vaccinated may blunt its impact, said Mellado, who uses modeling to predict the trajectory of infections.
Government scientists and actuaries at private companies have estimated that between 60% and 80% of South Africans were infected in earlier waves of the virus.
“Omicron seems to be moving at a faster speed than Delta, but at the same time what seems to be happening is that our hospitalisation rate is somewhat more muted,” said Shabir Madhi, a vaccinologist at Wits University in Johannesburg. “I’m optimistic that in this resurgence, while the total number of cases will probably be greater, hospitalisation and deaths will be lower.”
While previous infections and vaccinations may prevent serious illness, authorities have noticed a higher level of “reinfections” meaning “susceptibility of the population is greater”, Anne von Gottberg, a clinical microbiologist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), said during a World Health Organisation (WHO) briefing on Thursday.
Active cases in Gauteng will probably peak in coming weeks at about 40,000, as opposed to more than 100,000 during the third wave in the middle of this year, Mellado said. Hospitalisations due to Covid-19 will likely rise to about 4,000, compared with 9,500 in the third wave, he said.
Gauteng has fully inoculated 33% of its adult population with more than 7-million vaccines administered.
“Our province is at the cusp of the fourth wave in the sense that with the new variant we are the principal focus,” Gauteng premier David Makhura said on Thursday.
“The infections are rising rapidly, driven from the north of our province in Tshwane — that is where the resurgence is.”
Vaccination coverage in the province has increased since the discovery of the Omicron variant was announced. More than 100,000 people between 12 and 17 years old have been inoculated, Adiel Chikobvu, a director in charge of health economics and financing in the Gauteng department of health, said.
The WHO said it was deploying a surge team to Gauteng to help with surveillance and contact tracing. The body’s regional emergency director for Africa, Salam Gueye, said it was providing technical assistance to boost the production and distribution of medical oxygen in Botswana, where Omicron has also been detected. — additional reporting by Reuters
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