Omicron: South Africa lifts curfew as country says it has passed peak of wave driven by variant
The country has withdrawn a night curfew between 12 am and 4 am.
South Africa has eased Covid-19 restrictions as the country’s government on Thursday announced that the peak of its fourth wave of the coronavirus that was driven by the Omicron variant had passed, reported Reuters. The country has withdrawn a night curfew between 12 am and 4 am.
“All indicators suggest the country may have passed the peak of the fourth wave at a national level,” a statement after the Cabinet meeting of the South African government said.
The country has eliminated the need to quarantine vaccinated and unvaccinated contacts of those infected. The South African government also stopped tracing contacts of those who test positive, reported The Indian Express. Contact tracing will only be done in congregate settings and in cases where clusters form.
South Africa has also announced that gatherings will be limited to not more than 1,000 people if held indoors and not over 2,000 if its outdoors, according to Reuters. Licensed alcohol shops will now be able to go back to operating according to the norms followed before the restrictions.
The government cited data from its health department that showed a 29.7% reduction in the number of new infections in the week ending December 25. This data was compared to the number of cases (1,27,753) detected in the previous week.
The country’s Cabinet, in a statement, noted that while the Omicron strain had been highly transmissible, lower hospitalisation rates had been noted when compared to the previous waves of the coronavirus.
With nearly 3.5 million Covid-19 cases and 91,000 deaths, South Africa has been the country that was the worst-affected due to Covid-19 in Africa.
The country reported 12,978 new Covid-19 infections and 126 deaths in 24 hours till Thursday, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker. In the last week, it has recorded a total of 72,270 new infections and 399 fatalities.
South Africa has registered a total of 34,46,532 coronavirus cases and 91,061 deaths since the pandemic began in December 2019. So far, 29.98% (or, 1,58,01,609) of the country’s population has been vaccinated with both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.