In what could be good news for other regions battling omicron, the number of people in hospitals with Covid-19 fell by around 25 per cent
Covid-19 hospitalisations have fallen sharply in South Africa after a spike last month when the country reported the world’s first omicron outbreak, in what could spell good news for other regions battling the new variant.
The number of people in hospitals with Covid-19 fell by around 25 per cent to 5,600 over the last week, according to data from the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
The figures bolster recent reports indicating that the new highly mutated variant may not be as severe as other forms of Covid-19 like the beta or delta variants.
The news comes after South African officials announced late last week that fewer people have died or required hospital treatment from omicron despite a record number of new infections.
The seven-day rolling average for new infections in Gauteng province, the epicentre of South Africa’s omicron wave, also declined sharply. Average daily infections in Gauteng fell from more than 10,000 to less than 8,000.
“It really does seem as if…my country will escape relatively unscathed in this wave,” said Professor Tom Moultrie, a top demographer at the University of Cape Town.
