How fast is omicron spreading?
In Gauteng, where South Africa’s outbreak is currently centered,
the reproduction rate -- how fast the virus spreads --
is over 3. That’s the
highest it’s been and means that every infected person on average infects three more.
Cases in South Africa are rising at a near-record pace, and the rate of increase has outstripped South Africa’s three earlier waves.
Omicron is
4.2 times more transmissible than delta, according to a study in Japan.
The U.K. says the new strain is growing much faster than delta, and it expects omicron to become the dominant variant by the middle of December, accounting for more than half of new cases. On Friday, the U.K. reported almost 58,200 Covid cases overall.
How severe are infections?
With the outbreak just a few weeks old it’s too early to tell definitively, but doctors have reported patients with
fatigue and headaches and little more. That’s a big contrast to delta’s racing pulse rates and respiratory problems.
South Africa’s three biggest private hospital operators say
cases are much milder than in earlier waves. There are few people on oxygen or ventilators and only a slight uptick in deaths.
Currently there are about 5,000 people with Covid in South African hospitals, a quarter of the peaks seen in the previous two waves.
Do vaccines work?
The Africa Health Resource Institute was the first to isolate the virus and test it against Pfizer Inc.’s shot.
Omicron is able to largely, but not completely, evade the antibodies generated in response to the inoculation, the research showed. Pfizer’s own study backed that up.
The U.K. said Friday that two shots from AstraZeneca Plc or the Pfizer-BioNTech SE partnership provided much less protection against symptomatic infection with omicron, compared with the delta strain. But
a booster lifted that to 70% to 75% in the early days after the shot, according to preliminary data from a small study.
Data from South African hospitals in the municipal area of Tshwane presented on Dec. 3 showed that 68% of coronavirus hospital admissions were in people under 40. That compares with individuals over 50 accounting for 66.1% of hospitalizations during the first weeks of the third wave. South Africans over 60 are about twice as likely to have been vaccinated than those under 34.
So does Omicron suck or does it kick ass?
Richard Friedland, the chief executive officer of South Africa’s biggest private hospital group, Netcare Ltd. is optimistic.
“I actually think
there is a silver lining here and this may signal the end of Covid-19, with it attenuating itself to such an extent that it’s highly contagious, but doesn’t cause severe disease,” he said. “It’s early days, but I’m less panicked. It feels different to me on the ground.”
The World Health Organization is remaining cautious for now given so many unknowns, and the concern that any variant is a risk.
“If they’re allowed to spread unchecked, even though they’re not individually more virulent or more lethal,
they generate more cases, put pressure on the health system and more people die,” said Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO emergencies program. “We should hope for the best outcome, but in this particular case, hope is not a strategy. We need to be very careful on making any final determinations on severity.”