Covid admissions in South Africa hit highest level since variant hit

Daily Covid admissions in Omicron-hit South Africa hit highest level since variant took off and cases surge 81% in a week to 23,884 — but major real-world study claims variant IS milder and patients are discharged quicker than Delta

  • Data showed 600 admissions were recorded in the last 24 hours, the highest number since the wave began
  • Cases also jumped 81 per cent in a week to the highest tally in five months with another 23,884 recorded
  • But in a glimmer of hope average cases in Gauteng at the epicentre have continued to slow in recent days 

Daily Covid hospitalisations in Omicron-stricken South Africa have hit their highest level since the variant took hold, official figures revealed today.

Data showed 600 admissions were recorded in the last 24 hours, up 56 per cent from last Monday. There are currently 6,895 patients in the hospitals across the country.

Cases also jumped by 81 per cent in a week to 23,884, the highest tally in five months. 

But in a glimmer of hope the seven-day average for cases in Gauteng continued to slow, a month after the variant first emerged in the area. Cases were still rising sharply in all other regions. 

South Africa is ramping up its vaccination drive to try and limit hospitalisations due to the virus, and is yet to impose any further restrictions. It was already using face masks in most public places before the variant hit.

From 4am tomorrow, the country will be removed from the UK’s travel ‘red’ list along with its 10 neighbours which were also subject to the stringent curbs.

UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the Commons the change had been made because there was so much domestic transmission of the variant in Britain already, and that it was also spreading ‘widely across the world’.

It comes after the first major real-world study in South Africa confirmed today that the variant causes milder disease than Delta in patients at the epicentre of the wave.

It also found two doses of the Pfizer vaccine still provide 70 per cent protection against hospitalisation and death from Omicron, compared to 93 per cent for Delta.

But despite the growing optimism British officials were warned today that there would be a ‘significant increase’ in hospitalisations from Omicron in the coming weeks. UK experts are concerned that the country’s different demographics to South Africa put it at greater risk from the variant. 

Covid cases in South Africa jumped by 81 per cent in a week today with another 23,884 recorded in the last 24 hours

This chart shows daily Covid cases as reported for South Africa’s nine provinces. Gauteng is still seeing the most Covid cases reported every day

This map reveals which parts of South Africa the variant’s case numbers are rising fastest in. It shows these are the Free State and the Eastern Cape

The above graph shows weekly Covid hospitalisations in South Africa. It reveals they have started to rise after cases surged, but studies suggest Omicron is milder than the Delta variant

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases publishes daily Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths figures for South Africa.  

Its latest figures show that cases are still more than quadrupling week-on-week in two of the country’s nine provinces — Free State and the Eastern Cape.

Cases more than doubled week-on-week in five others — North West, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Northern Cape and the Western Cape.

Omicron is causing milder disease than Delta in patients in the epicentre of the new Covid variant, the first major real-world study in South Africa confirmed today.

Officials who analysed 78,000 Omicron cases in the past month estimated the risk of hospitalisation was a fifth lower than with Delta and 29 per cent lower than the original virus.

As a crude rate, Omicron is currently leading to a third fewer hospital admissions than Delta did during its entire wave — 38 admissions per 1,000 Omicron cases compared to 101 per 1,000 for Delta.

The findings lend weight to the theory that the ultra-infectious variant is weaker than previous strains, something which doctors on the ground in South Africa have been claiming for weeks.

But the reduction in severity is probably not solely down to Omicron being intrinsically milder, according to the South African Medical Research Council which led the analysis.

Around 70 per cent of South Africans have recovered from Covid already and 23 per cent are double-vaccinated, which has created high levels of immunity.

The finding will raise hopes that the UK’s Omicron wave will be less severe than previous peaks, despite having an older and denser population. Unlike South Africa, the UK is rolling out booster jabs on a mass scale.

The lowest rise was recorded in the Limpopo, where they went up 88 per cent in a week, and Gauteng, where they rose by just two per cent week-on-week.

Cases now appear to be plateauing in the region that was first to be hit by the Omicron variant. There were 8,685 new infections recorded today, compared to 8,445 at the same time the previous week. 

Some 25 per cent of South Africans are already double-jabbed against the virus, but most already have immunity against the virus from a previous infection.

It comes as UK ministers confirmed all countries will be removed from the Government’s international travel red list from 4am tomorrow because Omicron is already running rampant in the UK.

The 11 countries on the list are: Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The decision was hammered out at a meeting of the Cabinet’s Covid-19 operations (Covid-O) committee.

The red list was reintroduced last month following the emergence of Omicron as ministers tried to prevent importing cases into the UK. Despite the change on the red list, tougher travel testing rules introduced in response to the variant will remain in place.

Mr Javid told MPs this afternoon: ‘Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad.

‘So I can announce today that whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list, effective from 4am tomorrow morning.’

People arriving in the UK from red list countries must currently spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel at a cost of £2,285 for solo travellers.

Removing all 11 countries from the list will mean that ministers will once again mothball the hotel quarantine system.

The first real-world study in South Africa analysed 78,000 Omicron cases over the past month and estimated the risk of hospitalisation was a fifth lower than wiuth Delta and 29 per cent lower than the original virus.

 As a crude rate, Omicron is currently leading to a third fewer hospital admissions than Delta did during its entire wave — 38 admissions per 1,000 Omicron cases compared to 101 per 1,000 for Delta.

The findings lend weight to the theory that the ultra-infectious variant is weaker than previous strains, something which doctors on the ground in South Africa have been claiming for weeks.

But the reduction in severity is probably not solely down to Omicron being intrinsically milder, according to the South African Medical Research Council which led the analysis.

Around 70 per cent of South Africans have recovered from Covid already and 23 per cent are double-vaccinated, which has created high levels of immunity.

The finding will raise hopes that the UK’s Omicron wave will be less severe than previous peaks, despite having an older and denser population. Unlike South Africa, the UK is rolling out booster jabs on a mass scale.  

Officials who looked at 78,000 Omicron cases in the past month found t he risk of hospitalisation was a fifth lower than with Delta (in green) and 29 per cent lower than the original virus (dark blue). Omicron is shown in brown and the original South African ‘Beta’ variant in light blue. Children appeared to have a 20 per cent higher risk of hospital admission with complications during the new wave than the initial outbreak, despite the numbers still being tiny

As a crude rate, Omicron is currently causing a third fewer hospital admissions than Delta did during its entire wave — 38 admissions per 1,000 Omicron cases, compared to 101 per 1,000 for Delta 

The study also found that two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine still provides 70 per cent protection against hospital admission or death from Omicron, compared to 93 per cent for Delta

Against Delta, two Pfizer jabs initially offer more than 80 per cent protection against symptomatic infection before falling to around 60 per cent within six months.

Today’s study, co-run by private health insurance company Discovery Health, was based on more than 211,000 positive Covid test results from November 15 to December 7, 78,000 of which were attributed to Omicron.

Overall, four in 10 of those who tested positive had received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The 70 per cent protection from severe disease figure still puts two doses well above the World Health Organization’s efficacy threshold of 50 per cent.

But the researchers said that efficacy was reduced further in older age groups, falling to just 59 per cent in the 70 to 79 bracket, for example.

That could be because older people were vaccinated first in the initial rollout and there has been more time for immunity to wane than in younger people.

Protection against admission was consistent across a range of chronic illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and other cardiovascular diseases, the study said.

Children appeared to have a 20 per cent higher risk of hospital admission with complications during the fourth wave than during the first, despite the numbers still being tiny.

‘This is early data and requires careful follow up,’ said Shirley Collie, chief health analytics actuary at Discovery Health.

She cautioned that children were still 51 per cent less likely to test positive during the Omicron wave and the risk for them remains low. 

Source: Read Full Article