Omicron: Weekly Covid cases fall in South Africa’s hotspot province

A woman being vaccinated in South Africa
AP
Josh Salisbury15 December 2021

Covid cases in the Omicron-hit epicentre of South Africa have fallen, according to new data.

Coronavirus cases in the Gauteng province of the country, which includes the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, fell last week for the first time since the alarm was raised about Omicron in November.

According to the South African government’s latest weekly Covid epidemiological brief released on Wednesday, cases were down 3.9 per cent compared to the week previous, amounting to 377 new cases per 100,000 people in the province.

All other provinces in the country reported increases in Covid case rates, said the report, and there was a 42 per cent increase in the number of new cases overall across the country compared to the previous reporting week.

One expert told the Daily Mail that while the figure was small enough to be within the margin of error, it could suggest that Omicron had stopped exponentially growing in the region.

Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: “We should be careful not to read too much in a single week of data.

“But if this fall continues then that would be good news for South Africa and maybe for us as well.”

He said as the data was only one week, it could be down to access to testing, and that caution before interpreting results was needed.

Meanwhile, England’s chief medical officer said on Wednesday there should be “really serious caution” over reports that a reduction in hospitalisations was being seen in cases of Omicron in South Africa.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Professor Chris Whitty said: “The first caution on this is simply a numerical one - if the rate of hospitalisation were to halve but you're doubling every two days, in two days you're back to where you were before you actually had the hospitalisation.

“If the peak of this is twice as great, then halving of the size of the hospitalisation rate, you still end up in the same place. And this peak is going very fast.”

He added: “The second point I wanted to make, which I’m not sure it's fully been absorbed by everybody, is that the amount of immunity in South Africa for this wave - because of a prior Delta wave and vaccination - is far higher than it was for their last wave. And therefore the fact that there is a lower hospitalisation rate is unsurprising.”

Prof Whitty said: “That doesn’t mean that there isn't some degree of slightly milder disease, that is possible. But I just think there's a danger people have over-interpreted this to say, this is not a problem and what are we worrying about?

“I want to be clear, I'm afraid this is going to be a problem. Exact proportions of it, of course, South African scientists and UK scientists and scientists globally are trying to determine at the moment.”

The latest data from South Africa comes after one of the country’s top medical professionals claimed that the UK’s response to Omicron amounted to “hysteria”.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, a GP who heads South Africa’s Medical Association, told Sky News on Tuesday: “You need to take precautionary measures, you have to be prepared but don’t hype it up, (don’t say) that people are going to die from viral infection, that hospitals will be overwhelmed.

“It is better to wait and see."

However, senior Government experts in the UK have taken a more sombre tone, with the chief of the UK Health Security Agency warning Omicron is probably the biggest threat we have faced since the start of the pandemic.

The Government fears that if predictions of Omicron’s rapid transmissibility prove to be true, then the NHS could come under severe strain - even if it is a milder illness on average than other strains.

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