COVID Cases Double In A Day In SA Amid Omicron; WHO Says ‘We May See Serious Tripling’

Mumbai: Days after the Omicron variant was detected in South Africa, the COVID count has doubled in a day in the nation, authorities reported on Wednesday.

However, experts say that it is too early to be certain whether the Omicron variant is responsible for the surge in cases. Only a full genetic sequencing can confirm if the person is infected by the new mutated strain.

According to official statistics, new confirmed cases rose to 8,561 Wednesday from 4,373 a day earlier. Scientists in South Africa said they are bracing for a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases following the discovery of the new omicron variant.

Dr Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, the regional virologist for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press, “There is a possibility that really we’re going to be seeing a serious doubling or tripling of the cases as we move along or as the week unfolds.”

“There is a possibility that we are going to see a vast increase in the number of cases being identified in South Africa,” he added.

“Labs in South Africa and Botswana are urgently doing genomic sequencing to study omicron cases in order to see if it is significantly more transmissible, causes more serious cases of COVID-19 or if it evades protection from vaccinations,” said Gumede-Moeletsi.

“The current data that we’re having is still very limited. So there are so many additional characteristics of this virus that the researchers are busy studying, of which transmissibility is one of them. Severity is also another,” she added.

She further pointed out that the researchers need to find out if current vaccines will still be effective against it.

South Africa had seen a period of low transmission in early November with a 7-day average of about 200 new cases per day. But in the middle of November new cases began to rapidly increase. The positivity rate went from 1% early in November to 16.5% on Wednesday.

South Africa’s previous surge, driven by the delta variant in June and July, saw daily new cases reach a peak of more than 20,000. With a population of 60 million people, South Africa has recorded more than 2.9 million COVID-19 cases, including nearly 90,000 deaths.

The omicron variant has been detected in five of South Africa’s nine provinces and accounted for 74% of the virus genomes sequenced in November, the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases announced Wednesday.

According to the data released by the institute, the earliest detection of the Omicron variant in South Africa may have been on Nov. 8 in Gauteng province. It said until the end of October, the delta variant accounted for most genomes sequenced in the country.

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