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South Africa's recent decline in coronavirus cases is signaling a possible short wave for the new Omicron variant, which has presented a new challenge for hospitals worldwide and has quickly become the most dominant strain in the U.S. in only a matter of weeks.
South Africa was the first country to report the rapid takeoff of the highly transmissible variant, and infectious disease experts have watched the wave there carefully in hopes of being able to predict what lies ahead for the rest of the world.
After a report of nearly 27,000 new cases nationwide on December 16, South Africa's number has dropped to about 15,424 less than a week later, on Tuesday.
The noticeable drop was first recorded in South Africa's most populous province, Gauteng, where the country's largest city, Johannesburg, is located and where 16 million people reside. The decrease appears to have continued.
Scientists in South Africa first identified the new variant to the world on November 25 after the country saw an alarming rise in coronavirus cases that month. Since mid-November, an estimated 90 percent of infections in Guateng province have been from Omicron.
Last week, U.S. health officials said Omicron now accounts for 73 percent of new infections across the nation. On Wednesday, the new variant was officially detected in every state after South Dakota reported its first case.
The variant has also been detected in 88 other countries, according to the World Health Organization. Most notably, Omicron has swept through the U.K., where virus cases have surged 60 percent in a week.
While many feared that Omicron would devastate already overwhelmed health care systems, as the Delta variant did, the new strain appears to cause milder disease and significantly fewer hospitalizations, despite being more contagious than Delta.
"The rapid rise of new cases has been followed by a rapid fall, and it appears we're seeing the beginning of the decline of this wave," Dr. Fareed Abdullah, who works at the COVID-19 ward at South Africa's Steve Biko Academic Hospital, told the Associated Press.
But experts warn that it is still early to determine whether the peak of the latest wave has been reached worldwide, especially with the upcoming holidays potentially contributing to the virus's spread.
Some have suggested it will be hard to use South Africa as a model for how Omicron will behave in colder countries where people will be gathering indoors for the holidays over the next couple of weeks rather than outside. In South Africa, by contrast, it's summer.
Others have also pointed to South Africa's younger population, which may be less prone to severe illness from the virus than the older populations of countries like the U.S.
While much is still unknown about Omicron, early data indicates that vaccinated individuals are still less likely to be hospitalized or to die if they contract the virus. The odds appear to be even better for those who have received a booster shot.
Data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week indicates that unvaccinated individuals are 20 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than vaccinated individuals.
Update 12/22/21, 11:40 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with more background and information.
Update 12/22/21, 1:48 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include South Dakota's first Omicron case.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more