A week after South Africa detected the new Covid-19 variant – Omicron – the numbers of new cases have doubled to 8 561 in just one day.
Health authorities say Omicron has now been found in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces.
The local National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has warned that South Africa “is clearly headed for a fourth wave”.
Most of the people who have tested positive for Omicron are young.
So far those who are hospitalised have taken a shorter time to recover compared to those infected by the Delta variant.
On Wednesday Parliament’s portfolio committee on health was informed by the NICD that South Africa had the ability to manage the new variant.
In the last count of cases, 28 people died from Covid-19.
South Africa is considering making Covid-19 jabs mandatory. About 25 million of the country’s 60 million population, have been vaccinated and the government is ramping up efforts to get more people to accept the free jabs.
