South Africa offered us the first look inside Ómicron, the most contagious variant of coronavirus to date that is spreading rapidly throughout the world.
In this country, specifically in the province of Gauteng , the epicenter of Ómicron was decreed due to the explosion of cases that unleashed from mid-November to early December.
But the number of infections now seems to be falling almost as fast as it rose both in this province and in the rest of the African country.
The 14 November were recorded 283 new cases. Just a month later, the 16 December, infections catapulted into 23, 000 daily nationwide.
A growth not seen throughout the pandemic that quickly replicated in countries such as the United Kingdom or Denmark and is now seen in much of Europe and the United States .
But since that 15 December, the number of daily infections has plummeted in South Africa and this Monday 27 less than 15, 14 cases.
The first findings on omicron suggest that it causes less severity than its predecessors but has a higher rhythm or to which it is infected continues to be a challenge for hospitals and primary care centers.
The first line against omicron
Since this new variant was first detected in South Africa, the world has closely followed what is happening here, seeking to understand more about Ómicron.
epicenter arose in the province of Gauteng, the most populated of this country with approximately 16 millions of people.
In Gauteng is the largest city, Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria.
Following the rapid increase in cases here in mid-November, scientists began extensive genetic testing that soon came up with the new variant that was finally announced to the world in the past 25 of November.
Its high transmission caused omicron to quickly become dominant in South Africa, with the majority of cases being reported in Gauteng.
And although from the beginning omicron did not seem to have the same effect on the number of hospitalizations of other variants, the experts were concerned that the soaring number of cases saturate the h ospitals.
But since mid-December the cases in this province began to decline rapidly, replicating the same pattern in the rest of the country.
“The rapid increase in cases has been followed by a rapid decline and now it seems that we are seeing the beginning of the end of this wave,” said Dr. Fareed Abdullah, of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, in statements collected by the Associated Press.
And the downward trend does not seem to slow down, at least until this 28 from December.
What is happening in other countries?
Last week, before the case reduction in South Africa, Salim Abdool Karim, one of the leading epidemiologists in the response to the pandemic in this nation, said in an interview with The Washington Post that he expected that “every country, or almost every country, would follow the same trajectory ”.
From South Africa, precisely, we received the first studies on the apparent lower severity caused by Ómicron.
A few days later, similar analyzes were replicated in other countries and reinforced these conclusions.
In one of these investigations, the UK Health Security Agency estimated that those infected with omicron had between a 50% and a 70% less likely to need hospital treatment compared to other variants.
- The symptoms of the omicron variant “appear to be less severe”, although the risk for health systems continues
However, it still seems early to know if the drop in South African cases will also occur in the coming weeks in other countries.
December has been a month of record numbers of daily cases in European countries such as United Kingdom, Denmark, France or Norway.
Y Although this growth seems to have slowed down in recent days in the United Kingdom, for example, it is difficult to draw conclusions given that the Christmas festivities interrupt the usual rate of notification of cases.
Whether it will be repeated or not The South African case is something that only the evolution of the weeks will be able to say, although the situations are hardly comparable.
Different cases
Establishing comparisons between countries is difficult due to demographic and epidemiological differences.
Several experts agree and insist that The lower average age of the South African population and the high levels of immunity acquired during the waves of the delta and beta variants, make South Africa a case difficult to extrapolate to the European one and from other continents.
Last week, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) in the UK admitted that both the number of hospitalizations and infections appeared to be decreasing in the province of Gauteng, where the omicron epicenter in South Africa was decreed.
However, they added that “the The reasons for this were not clear and that it could not be assumed if it would be sustainable “.
“Nor can it be assumed that the wave in the United Kingdom will follow a similar pattern, given the different populations and epidemiological situations,” SAGE pointed out.
At the moment, the countries continue to accelerate their vaccination campaigns and the administration of booster doses. Others have taken measures of confinement and social distancing.
Meanwhile, the world is still attentive to South Africa for any clue that allows understanding better to this variant that threatens public health almost two years after the pandemic is decreed.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate them so as not to miss our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!