South Africa has passed the peak of its Omicron outbreak, according to one of the country’s top scientific researchers.
The country has «surpassed the peak of the Omicron wave now, driven by the significant decline in the populous province and epicenter: Gauteng,» Ridhwaan Suliman, senior researcher at the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), told CNN on Wednesday. This was echoed by one of the country’s top scientists, Michelle Groome of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), who told a media briefing earlier Wednesday that all indications show «that we’ve surpassed the peak of infections in Gauteng.» There was a 20.8% decrease in the number of new Covid-19 cases detected in South Africa as of December 18, according to the NICD’s epidemiology brief published Wednesday. Most other provinces in the country have also passed their peaks, Suliman said.
