NATIONAL NEWS - In light of the approaching winter months combined with the recent lifting of the national disaster act, South Africans have anxiously been watching an increase in Covid infections.
The Conversation Africa spoke to infectious disease specialist Veronica Ueckermann about the current trajectory of the pandemic in the country.
How is the latest peak different to previous ones?
By mid-May the number of Covid cases in South Africa were once again on the rise.
The latest data also show that there has been an increase in hospital admissions in both the public and private sector, though far smaller than in previous peaks. The proportion of patients requiring intensive care unit admission is also smaller – as are the fatalities.
This shows that most of the identified cases have been mild or incidental (in other words they’ve tested positive when admitted to hospital for something else). A similar pattern was seen with the fourth wave which was short-lived in December 2021/January 2022.
The fourth wave of Covid-19 infections in South Africa was dominated by the Omicron variant, which was labelled a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organisation after being reported by South African scientists.
The concern with the Omicron variant was its increased transmissibility, leading to a rapid increase in cases and high test-positivity rates. It became clear that the clinical presentation of this variant was quite different from its predecessors.
It had decreased severity of disease. And more co-incidental diagnosis among patients presenting to hospital for other reasons.
The current increase in infection is associated with the BA .4 and BA.5 – sub-lineages of the Omicron variant. It may be early days, but it appears that they have similar clinical manifestations.
It is hoped that the uncoupling between case numbers and hospitalisations and deaths observed in the fourth wave will continue to be be observed with these subvariants.
