South Africa is the country that first discovered the omicron variant and experienced a surge of new cases in early December, but now health officials are saying that peak is actually subsiding. However, last week omicron accounted for nearly every new coronavirus case in South Africa, but yet recent data indicates there’s a slow decline beginning. South Africa also decided against imposing any lockdowns or other major restrictions. As to why South Africa is seeing a sharp decline in omicron cases, Karim told the Post that both the quick rise of cases and omicron’s lower severity of illness could be a factor. “In South Africa, variants, even highly mutated ones, will run out of people pretty quickly.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 23, 2021 07:29 UTC