No panic over new Covid-19 variants as fifth wave looms

There’s no need to panic about the so-called new variants of Omicron as South Africans prepare for the fifth wave of Covid-19 infections with the cold season approaching fast, experts say.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said all viruses, including SarsCoV-2 that causes Covid-19, changed over time.

Earlier this month, NICD found the variant of concern, Omicron, has been detected in 153 countries globally and split into different lineages, based on the mutational profiles.

In SA, the variant dominated the December, January and February sequencing data at 98% of genomes.

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The NICD said the BA.1 variant as predominant in December (85%) and January (49%).

The variant was responsible for 5% of the infections in December and rose from 41% infections in January, to 83% in February.

National Department of Health spokesperson Foster Mogale said the department wasn’t concerned about a new wave when a variant has numbers and no name and it has not been declared a variant of concern.

“Yes, BA.2 is presently dominant but is still omicron and is behaving the same as its parent,” he said, adding there was no such thing as “DeltaCron”.

“It is a pet name media are using for variants that exhibit mutations of both delta and omicron.”

The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) president, Professor Glenda Gray, said they expected the fifth wave in the winter months.

“There is, indeed, ongoing transmission, which appears to be at a higher rate than after Delta or Beta,” she said.

Gray said doing genomic surveillance was important to identify new variants that may emerge.

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Dr Angelique Coetzee, from the Advisory Committee of Solidarity of Medical Doctors, said no one can say whether the fifth wave would be the same as the current Omicron or Delta variants.

“If we look at the previous patterns that we have seen in the past two years in the first four waves, it’s quite clear when we have a wave, there are about three months before the next wave starts,” she said.

“If it doesn’t happen then the pattern might be broken and, hopefully, it might become endemic.”

Coetzee said it will be crucial to see what happens in the next five to six months.

“The B2 variant is already here. We have seen it in the surgeries and there is no reason to panic,” she said.