Vaccine Mandate Battle Looms as Omicron Cases Surge
As President Cyril Ramaphosa warns that the long-expected fourth wave is upon the country, a legal battle against mandatory vaccination is brewing even as Omicron rates create an unprecedented surge, likely driven through re-infections.
Omicron, detected by South African scientists only two weeks ago, is now dominating in most provinces. However, he stressed that the country had been prepared for a fourth wave, having long been predicted by modellers. He reiterated the call for more vaccinations and to observe social distancing as much as possible over the festive season.
Vaccine mandates are now on the cards, which are expected to be introduced in early 2022. Civil rights groups including Afriforum and Sakeliga have threatened legal action if the government moves ahead on its plans to introduce vaccine mandates.
Afriforum called vaccine mandates a violation of personal freedoms, and cited Ramaphosa’s statement February this year saying that nobody in the country would be forced to take a vaccination.
As of Monday evening, reported test positivity rate now stands at 26.4%, which is well above the 10% ‘level of concern’ which had been reached a week ago.. In the third wave, it took about a month to go from this level to 25%.
At this stage, there is only anecdotal evidence around Omicron’s severity which suggests milder disease.
Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert, one of the creators of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, echoed the warning that vaccine effectiveness may be reduced against Omicron, noting its spike protein contained mutations known to increase the transmissibility of the virus. She cautioned that “there are additional changes that may mean antibodies induced by the vaccines, or by infection with other variants, may be less effective at preventing infection with Omicron.
“Until we know more, we should be cautious, and take steps to slow down the spread of this new variant.”
Preliminary results published in a preprint paper awaiting peer review suggest that the re-infection hazard ratio for Omicron is 2.39, with a possible range of 1.88–3.11 falling within the 95% confidence interval. By contrast, they found that the Beta and Delta variants proliferated primarily as a result of increased transmissibility, not immune escape.
