South Africa’s case drop may show omicron peak has passed

South Africarsquos noticeable drop in new COVID19 cases in recent days may signal that the countryrsquos dramatic omicrondriven surge has passed its peak medical experts sayDaily virus case counts are notoriously unreliable as they can be affected by uneven testing reporting delays and other fluctuations But they are offering one tantalising hint mdash far from conclusive yet mdash that omicron infections may recede quickly after a ferocious spikeSouth Africa has been at the forefront of the omicron wave and the world is watching for any signs of how it may play out there to try to understand what may be in storeAfter hitting a high of nearly 27000 new cases nationwide on Thursday the numbers dropped to about 15424 on Tuesday In Gauteng province mdash South Africarsquos most populous with 16 million people including the largest city Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria mdash the decrease started earlier and has continuedldquoThe drop in new cases nationally combined with the sustained drop in new cases seen here in Gauteng province which for weeks has been the center of this wave indicates that we are past the peakrdquo Marta Nunes senior researcher at the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics department of the University of Witwatersrand saidldquoIt was a short wave and the good news is that it was not very severe in terms of hospitalizations and deathsrdquo she said It is ldquonot unexpected in epidemiology that a very steep increase like what we saw in November is followed by a steep decreaserdquo 543414 No of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours274628461 Total no of cases worldwide5358978 Total no of deaths worldwidelsquoOmicron to dominate Europe soonrsquoOmicron will dominate European countries within weeks pushing an already stretched health system further to the brink said head of the European office of the WHO while urging people to get a booster jab rdquoWe can see another storm comingrdquo said Dr Hans Kluge WHO regional director ldquoOmicron is likely to become the dominant variant circulating in our regionrdquo he addedIsrael prepares to administer fourth dose of COVID19 vaccineIsrael is poised to begin administering the fourth dose of the COVID19 vaccine for medical personnel and people aged 60 and above in a bid to curb the spread of Omicron infections in the country the Prime Ministerrsquos Office said on WednesdayUS Secret Service Nearly 100B stolen in pandemic relief fundsNearly 100 billion at minimum has been stolen from COVID19 relief programmes set up to help businesses and people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic the US Secret Service said Tuesday The estimate is based on Secret Service cases and data from the Labor Department and the Small Business Administration said Roy Dotson the agencyrsquos national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator in an interview The Secret Service didnrsquot include COVID19 fraud cases prosecuted by the Justice DepartmentThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever