Infections in South Africa’s Omicron epicentre show signs of slowing

New infections at the centre of South Africa’s Omicron coronavirus variant outbreak are showing “early indications” of slowing down as hospital admissions also remain below previous waves, the country’s health minister said.

South Africa recorded more than 24,000 new cases on Thursday, with about one in three tests coming back positive.

But in recent days new cases and positive test rates appear to have turned a corner in Gauteng, the economic hub where South Africa’s first Omicron cases were seen.

While cases are still rising rapidly in other provinces, Gauteng may have peaked with positive test rates that were as high as 35 per cent now on the decline, Joe Phaahla, the health minister, said on Friday.

Gauteng now accounts for just over a quarter of South Africa’s daily new cases, down from about three-quarters earlier in the Omicron wave, he added.

Since the end of November, when Omicron was first detected in the region by scientists in South Africa and Botswana, South Africa’s fourth wave has risen much faster but with far fewer admissions to hospitals so far compared with the same period in earlier waves.

South African scientists are cautiously ascribing this “decoupling” to the country’s high rates of prior infection from earlier waves and a vaccination programme that has jabbed relatively high numbers of older people. Even though only about four in 10 adults have been double vaccinated overall, most people aged over 60 have received at least one dose.

In the second week of the fourth wave, hospitalisations were running at about 350 a day compared to about 20,000 confirmed new daily cases, versus nearly 900 hospital admissions and about 4,500 new daily cases in the second week of the third wave, Phaahla said. South Africa’s third wave was driven by the Delta variant.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who tested positive at the weekend and came down with mild symptoms, “is in good spirits and comfortable in his recovery”, the government said on Friday.

The government has so far kept restrictions, such as a night-time curfew, at their lowest level through the Omicron wave. The health ministry said on Friday that measures would remain unchanged for now but were under regular review.

As the year ends and the country’s summer festive season begins, South Africa’s vaccination programme is not meeting its targets, with about 100,000 to 130,000 doses being administered a day compared with the aim of at least 250,000.

“The numbers have gone down quite drastically,” Phaahla said.

The programme has hit problems with distribution to poorer areas, as well as misinformation and worries about side effects.

South Africa is expected to begin the mass rollout of boosters of the BioNTech/Pfizer shot, one of the two main jabs used in the country, as the year ends. A regulatory decision on boosters for the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot is expected imminently.