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Daily Covid cases in South Africa have fallen again by 22 percent compared to last week's figures, fuelling hopes that the country's Omicron wave is over. 

South Africa, whose scientists detected the variant, recorded 21,099 new cases in the last 24 hours, down by nearly a quarter on the 26,976 infections confirmed last Wednesday.

A fifth fewer people were tested for the virus in the last 24 hours compared to the same period last week, but test positivity — the proportion of those tested who are infected — has been trending downwards for nine days.    

Hospitalizations have also seen a slight decline, with more than 590 people admitted to hospitals across the country, down by four percent in a week, data from the National Institute For Communicable Diseases (NICD), revealed.

But deaths – which lag two to three weeks behind the pattern seen in case numbers due to the delay in an infected person becoming seriously unwell – have risen.

A further 99 Covid-related deaths were recorded on Wednesday, compared to 54 recorded a week ago.    

The falling case numbers come despite only 25 percent of South Africans being double-jabbed and boosters not being dished out in the country. 

It raises hopes that the UK's Omicron wave will also be short-lived, with Britain also having a layer of protection in its booster programme.  

It comes as UK scientists wait for data on how deadly the Omicron surge will be, with uncertainties about how severe it is and how well vaccines protect against serious outcomes.

But promisingly, cases already appear to be plateauing in the UK, with around 90,000 daily infections recorded for the last six days.

That's despite gloomy Government modelling warning that 1million Britons could be catching the virus daily by the end of the year.