South Africa prepares hospitals for Omicron variant as Reuters boosts new wave of COVID-19

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa is preparing for more hospitals as the Omicron coronavirus variant pushes the country to a fourth round of COVID-19 cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday.

Omicron was first detected last month in South Africa and has raised global alarm because governments fear another rise in infections.

There were more than 16,000 daily infections in South Africa last week on Friday, up from around 2,300 on Monday.

Ramaphosa said in a weekly bulletin that Omicron was dominating new cases in most of the country’s nine provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“South Africa has a sufficient supply of vaccines now, … the vaccine is essential for our economic recovery because more people will be vaccinated as more economic activity opens up,” he said.

The government will soon convene the National Coronavirus Governing Council to look into the state of the pandemic and decide whether further measures are needed to keep people safe, Ramaphosa said.

Scientists in South Africa and other countries are racing to determine if Omicron is more contagious, more serious, more resistant to disease, and more resistant to existing vaccines.

But some of the anecdotal accounts of doctors and experts in South Africa are reassuring, suggesting that many of the infections it causes are mild.

“We are closely monitoring infection and hospitalization rates,” Ramaphosa said.