increasing, they still appear to be mild. good news there. i m joined now by devin mackenzie in johannesburg and david bittermann. we are seeing soaring cases of omicron in africa. what are doctors saying about the scale of the surge and the symptoms here? well, when you look at the numbers, isa, certainly cases are soaring here in south africa, particularly in this province, and positivity rates increasing. as you d expect, as you move through a peak of a wave, it has happened quickly, quicker than in other waves. and certainly that speaks to the possible transmissibility of this variant, which is assumed to be dominating now in south africa. but there are some positive signs. clinicians, ambulance workers, hospital administrators i ve been talking to over the last few days say there isn t a sense yet that there is a big rush onto the hospitals for severe cases. it s still early days, but that