South Africa offered some good news for 2021’s penultimate day: The Omicron-fueled COVID-19 wave in the city of Tshwane is over, and its death toll hasn’t increased by much. “The speed with which the Omicron-driven fourth wave rose, peaked and then declined has been staggering,” Fareed Abdullah, the director of South African Medical Research Council, wrote on Twitter Thursday. “It was a flash flood more than a wave.” Officials in South Africa also said there was no massive spike in deaths from the Omicron variant, with death rates in the last week being “marginal,” according to The New York Times. The end of the wave prompted South Africa to end its late-night curfew Thursday, though face masks are still required in public places.
The positive news will likely be reflected in the U.S. within the next month, University of Washington epidemiologist Ali Mokdad said. “We’ll be in for a tough January, as cases will keep going up and peak, and then fall fast,” he said.
Read it at The New York Times
