Well, it does seem to be winning out.
Majority of new COVID-19 cases in South Africa are omicron variant: report
South African health officials said Wednesday the omicron variant accounts for most new cases of COVID-19 in the country.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases announced that around 75 percent of 249 positive test samples that were genetically examined were tied to the new variant,
The New York Times reported.
South Africa
reported 8,651 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, nearly doubling the number of cases the
day before. The country has now recorded nearly 3 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO)
announced earlier Wednesday that the omicron variant had reached 23 countries prior to the detection of the first case in the U.S. in California. Omicron spread should not be surprising, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news briefing.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases announced that around 75 percent of 249 positive test samples that were genetically examined were tied to the new variant.
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Toddlers Make Up 10% of Hospital Cases in Omicron Epicenter
Children under the age of 2 account for about 10% of total hospital admissions in the omicron epicenter Tshwane in South Africa, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
More kids are being admitted than during the early stages of the country entering the current fourth wave of infections, although a similar trend occurred during the third wave when delta was dominant, said Waasila Jassat, public health specialist at the institute.
South African scientists were last week the first to identify the new variant now known as
omicron, and while symptoms have been described as mild, the exact risk from the new strain is still uncertain. Governments across the globe stepped up travel restrictions in response, and the World Health Organization warned that the variant could fuel a fresh surge in infections.
“The very young children have an immature immune system and they are also not vaccinated, so they are more at risk,” said Jassat, who was part of developing and managing South Africa’s national hospital surveillance system for Covid-19.
She said that part of the increased rate of admissions may reflect extra precaution on the part of parents given the new concern about the mutation. A pediatric report due later this week should provide more information.
In Tswane, the municipality that includes the capital Pretoria, 52 children under the age of 2 diagnosed with the coronavirus have been admitted and one has died, Jassat said. It’s not yet clear whether they contracted omicron, currently the region’s dominant strain.
During the delta-driven third wave, hospital admission for those under the age of 19 jumped 43%, and the country has since opened up vaccinations to adolescents between 12 and 17 years.
“It does however appear that in this early part of this wave a higher proportion of children are being admitted than they were in the past,” Jaffat said.
South Africa Could Top 10,000 Daily Covid Cases This Week: Epidemiologist
Health monitors reported over 2,800 new infections on Sunday, up from a daily average of 500 in the previous week and 275 the week before.
The newly-discovered 'Omicron' variant is likely to fuel a surge in South Africa's coronavirus cases that could see daily infections treble this week, a top epidemiologist warned Monday.
Health monitors reported over 2,800 new infections on Sunday, up from a daily average of 500 in the previous week and 275 the week before.
"We can expect that higher transmissibility is likely and so we are going to get more cases quickly," Dr Salim Abdool Karim said at an online health ministry press briefing.
"I am expecting we will top over 10,000 cases by the end of the week per day (and) see pressure on hospitals within the next two, three weeks."
South African scientists announced the new highly-mutated variant on Thursday, blaming it for a sudden rise in infections in Africa's worst-hit nation.
Hospital admissions more than doubled over the past month in Gauteng, South Africa's most populous province and the epicentre of the new outbreak, according to official figures.
The newly-discovered 'Omicron' variant is likely to fuel a surge in South Africa's coronavirus cases that could see daily infections treble this week, a top epidemiologist warned Monday.
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