New variant set for strongest transmission in South Africa
BRUSSELS: The Omicron coronavirus variant is spreading faster in Gauteng, the epicentre of the latest outbreak in South Africa, than the Delta strain or any of the earlier mutations, an adviser to the provincial government said. There is the “strongest acceleration in community transmission ever seen in South Africa,” Bruce Mellado, the adviser, said in a presentation on Thursday. This is “consistent with dominance of a variant that is more transmissible”, he said.
South Africa 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.
Still previous infections and the fact that about a quarter of South Africans are fully vaccinated may blunt its impact, Mellado said. He uses modelling 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 the University of the Witwatersrand. “I’m optimistic that in this resurgence, while the total number of cases will probably be greater, hospitalisations and deaths will be lower.
‘It may cause over half of infections in Europe’ The European Union’s public health agency, the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control (ECDC), said on Thursday that the Omicron variant could be responsible for more than half of all infections in Europe with a few months.
“Based on mathematical modelling conducted by ECDC, there are indications that Omicron could cause over half of all SarsCoV-2 infections in the EU/EEA within the next few months,” it said in a document. The European Union and European Economic Area includes the 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.