South Africa's noticeable drop in new COVID-19 cases in recent days may signal that the country's dramatic omicron-driven surge has passed its peak, medical experts say.Daily virus case counts are notoriously unreliable, as they can be affected by uneven testing, reporting delays and other fluctuations. But they are offering one tantalizing hint - far from conclusive yet - that omicron infections may recede quickly after a ferocious spike. In Gauteng province - South Africa's most populous with 16 million people, including the largest city, Johannesburg, and the capital, Pretoria - the decrease started earlier and has continued. Scientists doing genetic sequencing quickly identified the new, highly mutated omicron variant that was announced to the world on Nov. 25.Significantly more transmissible, omicron quickly achieved dominance in South Africa. This could accelerate omicron's spread across South Africa and to neighboring countries, experts said.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 22, 2021 13:37 UTC