South Africa govt eases curfew restrictions; asserts Omicron-driven fourth wave has passed

As cases of Omicron declined sharply in past two weeks, South Africa has announced to ease restrictions from 31 December, Friday. According to country's health ministry, fourth wave of Coronavirus, driven by new variant, Omicron, has passed. ministry said cases dropped nearly 30% compared to last week. While announcing relaxations, government said it has removed midnight to 4 am curfew based on trajectory of cases. According to statement released by government, all indicators suggested nation might have passed peak of fourth wave.

cabinet noted that new variant was highly transmissible but ded rate of hospitalisation was relatively low as compared to earlier COVID variants.  health ministry informed that cases of all kinds of COVID variants dropped 29.7% compared to Christmas week.  Notably, in third week of November, scientists in South Africa identified new COVID variant called B.1.1529, or Omicron. announcement prompted several countries to eir restrict international travel or tighten ir grip by formulating popular "TTT" strategy-- Tracing, Testing and Treatment. Despite regular updates from global health agencies, situation is not clear wher new variant is more lethal than earlier variants or wher vaccine affects Omicron variant or not.

Senior researcher says, 'It was a short wave'

However, South Africa, where new variant was first detected, noted a dramatic decline in fresh cases. " drop in new cases nationally combined with sustained drop in new cases seen here in Gauteng province, which for weeks has been centre of this wave, indicates that we are past peak," Marta Nunes, senior researcher at Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics department of University of Witwatersrand, told AP. "It was a short wave and good news is that it was not very severe in terms of hospitalisations and deaths. It is not unexpected in epidemiology that a very steep increase, like what we saw in November, is followed by a steep decrease," she ded.

With announcement of new guidelines, alcohol shops with licences operate beyond 11 pm. However, public garings are still capped at 1,000 people indoors, and no more than 2,000 people outdoors. Apart from se, wearing face masks is mandatory outdoors and while using public services. 

Image: AP/Pixabay/Representative