South Africa accelerates vaccination campaign amid surge

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has accelerated its vaccination campaign by giving jabs at pop-up sites in shopping centers and transportation hubs to combat a rapid rise in new COVID-19 cases a week after the discovery of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

New daily cases nearly doubled to 8,561 Wednesday, from 4,373 a day earlier, according to official statistics. Scientists said they were bracing for the surge to continue.

“We want families to be safe this festive season,” Minister of Health Joe Phaahla said Thursday. “Before you go home, before you leave on vacation, make sure you protect yourself and those you love. If you visit your parents and they have not yet been vaccinated, go with them to your closest vaccination site. It could save their lives.”

Gauteng province, where South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg, and the capital, Pretoria, are located, is a hotspot of new infections, with more than 70% of the new cases.

Gauteng officials say they were “preparing for the worst” by increasing hospital beds and reopening some field hospitals in anticipation of increased admissions of COVID-19 patients.

Tests indicate the omicron variant, which was first reported in Southern Africa, is spreading quickly and is now in five of South Africa's nine provinces. It is not known how many of the new daily cases involve omicron because scientists can only do full genetic sequencing on a small number of positive tests.

However, it appears that omicron is “rapidly becoming the dominant variant” in South Africa, according to a statement issued by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. The institute said that 74% of the 249 samples sequenced in November were identified as omicron.

In October, before omicron was discovered, the delta variant was the dominant...