South Africa’s latest surge is a possible preview of pandemic’s next chapter

Coronavirus cases are surging again in South Africa, and public health experts are monitoring the situation, eager to know what is driving the spike, what it says about immunity from previous infections and what its implications are globally.

South Africa experienced a decline in cases after hitting an omicron-fueled, pandemic peak in December. But in the past week, cases have tripled, positivity rates are up and hospitalizations have also increased, health officials said. The surge has the country facing a possible fifth wave.

The spike is linked to BA.4 and BA.5, two subvariants that are part of the omicron family.

Tulio de Oliveira, director of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform, said BA.4 and BA.5 demonstrate how the virus is evolving differently as global immunity increases.

“What we are seeing now, or at least maybe the first signs, is not completely new variants emerging, but current variants are starting to create lineages of themselves,” de Oliveira said.