believed to be largely driven by the omicron variant. south africa is seeing a positivity rate of 24.3% which is extraordinary. there s not enough data yet on hospitalizations because that is a lagging indicator. south africa s national institute severity of the disease develops over time. these are the early days of the fourth wave of the disease here in africa. so far, about 3 million people have caught the virus at the start of the pandemic, hovering around 90,000. reporter: i m ivan watson in hong kong, authorities in the new south wales have ordered an investigation into the cluster of covid-19 infections, centering on a school in the city of sydney. 13 infections there confirmed, but what s got the authorities particularly concerned is that three of those cases are of the new omicron variant, and the authorities say that they re
of is it making people more sick. we talked to the professor in south africa. and he said right now, no. but it s too early to tell. . yeah. i think that s the case. let s put up that hospitalization graphic again. this is that particular province that we re tracking very carefully. and if you look at hospitalization rates over the last three weeks, they have gone up. they have been higher at other place in the pandemic. but they are going up. this is their late spring over there. you know, we know, severe illness, hospitalization, seems to be a lagging indicator. two to three weeks. i m going to be watching closely to see if the numbers continue to go up. again, we re not even sure that s directly related to this particular variant, omicron. but it might be. that s how granular they need to get to try and figure out is
it was job growth. it wasn t job less. the reasons the unemployment rate declined are mixed, partly because of people dropped out of the labor force, partly because people got jobs. i think the most positive way to read this report is if it is the delta variant that was really causing the slow down in hiring it looks like this wave may have peaked. this wave of the pandemic, i should say, it may have peaked. hospitalizations seem to be slowing down. maybe even declining in some places. deaths, a lagging indicator may say the same thing, and if that is the case, then maybe next month will be a little bit better. now, we still have a lot of head winds in this economy, not just the pandemic itself, per se, but also the fact that there are child care shortages, workers face other obstacles for getting back to work. health care workers are burnt out. part of the reason the numbers were bad, health care hiring went down. some may have to do with the fact that hospitals aren t doing as many e
pandemic is a global response. not only within our own country and we are working to get a lot of doses, many, many doses, literally hundreds of millions of doses, more than a billion, to other countries, particularly low and middle income countries. but in direct answer to your question, we are seeing a turnaround as you mentioned correctly, diminution in cases, diminution in hospitalization. deaths are still up, but that is usually a lagging indicator. and i fully expect if we keep going in the direction of a diminution in hospitalization and cases that the deaths will start coming down. having said that, not to diminish that that s good, positive news, is that we still have so many people who are not vaccinated that we d better be careful that we don t say we re out of the woods. we might not be out of the woods in the sense of no more covid around at all. you know, i also said something over the weekend that was taken
fallen dramatically in the last two weeks. and so ultimately, as i have said, deaths, unfortunately, is a lagging indicator, we ve seen cases, again, cut in half in mississippi. and these other states that you refuse to talk about, perhaps because they have democratic governors, you don t want to talk about them. but the reality is, you and the president and so many other people want to make this about politics. the governor of west virginia is a republican. not just attacking republicans in red states. this virus is not just attacking republicans in red states. this virus is attacking republicans and democrats in red states and in blue states. and what we ought to be talking about is what can we do to minimize the deaths going forward? the president s not focused on saving lives, the president s focused on taking unilateral action to show his power, to show that he s doing something, but that s not going to solve things. okay. the governor of west virginia is a republican.