Fifteen days after the World Health Organization (WHO) was notified of the discovery of Ômicron in southern Africa, uncertainties regarding the new variant of Covid-19 are still high. The first signs to emerge from the African continent, where 46% of all confirmed cases of the strain are concentrated, are mixed: if it seems to have at least some degree of vaccine escape and greater transmissibility, it also appears to cause milder cases of the disease.
The number of people diagnosed with Covid in the territory of South Africa, the first country to detect Ômicron, increased by 255% in the last week, the regional arm of the WHO said on Thursday. It is not known how many of them were infected with the new strain, as virus sequencing is done in only a portion of the samples, but experts credit the new wave at least partially to the variant.
In a month, between November 8th and December 8th, the South African moving average soared from 264 daily cases to 13,500. The trend is for a new high this week, after 22,391,000 infections were detected on Thursday. The current wave already surpasses the first seen in the country, between July and August 2021, when the moving average of cases reached a peak of 12,500.
The current outbreak is even milder than the most recent two, when the average number of cases reached 19,000 before dropping. Deaths, in turn, remain a fraction of what was recorded at other times — a possible sign that Omicron symptoms are milder than those caused by other strains.
In the first South African outbreak of Covid-19, the moving average of daily deaths reached 297 and, in the following waves, 577 and 419, respectively. Today, the country registers an average of 23.86 deaths per day, or 0.4 for every million inhabitants. The rate for Brazil, which on Wednesday had its lowest number of deaths since April 2020, is 0.86. To date, no country has recorded deaths caused by Ômicron.
Both the authorities and the WHO emphasize that it is still too early to draw conclusions about Ômicron, but there are other signs that indicate the occurrence of less serious cases in South African territory. Just 6 percent of the country’s intensive care beds, for example, are occupied by patients with Covid, said Thierno Balde, of the health organization’s regional arm.
Less need for O2
Preliminary data from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases for the Tshwane region, which includes Pretoria, the epicenter of South Africa’s fourth wave, shows just over 1,600 admissions for Covid between Nov. 14 and Dec. 8. Of these, 31% were severe cases, that is, they needed to receive oxygen or be put on artificial respirators.
In the first wave of the virus, 67% of cases were considered serious and in the second, 66%. The organization warned that the study has limitations and that the severity could increase as the fourth wave progresses, but the findings coincide with reports by local doctors.
Neighboring Botswana, meanwhile, has not seen an increase in admissions over the past two weeks. By Wednesday, there was only one Covid patient occupying intensive care beds, and most severe cases were identified in unvaccinated patients — 21.6% of the country’s population had completed their immunization cycle, according to the website Our World in Data . So far, there are 25 confirmed diagnoses of Ômicron in the country.
