Virulence, Infectiousness, Geographic-Linked

"South Africa has a low vaccination rate but a large proportion of the population has been infected during previous COVID-19 waves."

"As such the results from this study are not directly portable to other settings such as Europe or North America and more data will be needed before we can make any more robust prediction about the potential threat."

Francois Balloux, director, professor of computational systems biology, University College London 

The omicron variant was first reported in South Africa, but has quickly been found around the world

Calls for tough restrictions on COVID-19 have been led by new data arriving out of South Africa which suggest the Omicron variant could more than double risk of being reinfected with the coronavirus. Reinfections increased substantially between November 1 and November 27, at a time that the new variant of concern, Omicron was gaining a foothold in South Africa, according to research carried out by Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch universities. 

From their data, a 2.39 times greater risk of catching the virus again exists compared to the original Wuhan strain. Information that leads to the impression that the virus has been able to bypass immunity. Those same study authors came to a surprising conclusion: In South Africa there was a drop experienced in reinfections of around 30 percent following Delta's dominance, findings that contrast with data from the U.K. Office for National Statistics this week.

People in England had a 36 percent reduced opportunity of a reinfection under Alpha, according to the newly-released data from the Office for National Statistics, with secondary infections rising as Delta became more prominent. This indicates that variants may be behaving differently in different countries. Factors such as population age, vaccination uptake and different immunity profiles linked to whatever variants have been geographically dominant.

 

The daily number of vaccine doses administered has been increasing this week

 

South Africa has an average age in its population of 27; in other words a young, oerall population median, in comparison to the United Kingdom with its average of 40 years of age. Data from the Office for National Statistics indicate reinfections are more likely to occur in those people who experienced a mild infection with their first exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID.

As might be anticipated in younger, fitter populations, early anecdotal data from doctors suggest that most Omicron cases they attend to are mild in character. In Gauteng, the most populous province in South Africa, infection numbers have increased by 375 percent week over week, while hospital admissions have been elevated by 4.2 percent, and deaths by 28.6 percent in a country where a mere one-quarter of the population has been double-vaccinated.

87 percent of hospitalized cases in South Africa, revealed this week by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, were unvaccinated. From Imperial College, research suggests that in countries like South Africa people become "imprinted" with a specific immune profile after having encountered coronavirus, its variants and the vaccines having an impact on dictating how they fight off new variants.