South Africa has passed the peak of its Omicron outbreak, according to one of the country’s top scientific researchers.<\/b>
\nThe country has \u00ab\u00a0surpassed the peak of the Omicron wave now, driven by the significant decline in the populous province and epicenter: Gauteng,\u00a0\u00bb 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 \u00ab\u00a0that we’ve surpassed the peak of infections in Gauteng.\u00a0\u00bb 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. NICD data shows a 23% decrease in recorded cases in North West Province over the past week (now at 40.3 cases per 100,000 people). In Limpopo Province there was a 14% decrease in recorded cases over the last week, and in Mpumalanga Province, a 6% decrease, according to the NICD data. The news comes as the Omicron variant continues to take a grip of many countries around the world, including in the United States, where the variant has now been detected in every state. Meanwhile, countries across Europe are reintroducing Covid restrictions to battle this latest wave, driven by the new variant. Dr. Angelique Coetzee, national chair of the South African Medical Association and one of the first doctors to treat patients with Omicron, told CNN’s New Day program on Monday that South Africa was \u00ab\u00a0over the curve,\u00a0\u00bb highlighting that Gauteng province’s numbers were \u00ab\u00a0much lower.\u00a0\u00bb Suliman characterized the country’s fourth wave as a \u00ab\u00a0steeper wave,\u00a0\u00bb that was \u00ab\u00a0significantly shorter\u00a0\u00bb than those prior, saying in a tweet that it took \u00ab\u00a0about half the number of days to reach the peak compared with previous waves in South Africa.\u00a0\u00bb According to Suliman, although test positivity remains \u00ab\u00a0still high at 29.8%,\u00a0\u00bb the fact the figure is decreasing confirms \u00ab\u00a0the decline in infections is real and not a testing artifact.\u00a0\u00bb And although there may be a \u00ab\u00a0slight increase in deaths,\u00a0\u00bb the figure will be \u00ab\u00a0substantially lower\u00a0\u00bb than that experienced with the Delta variant, South African vaccinologist Shabir Mahdi also told CNN on Wednesday. Hospitalizations and deaths from this wave have proven to be \u00ab\u00a0significantly lower relative to that experienced in previous waves,\u00a0\u00bb Suliman said. South African scientists were the first to identify the Omicron variant earlier this month, helping to raise the alarm to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n