After becoming the first country to identify the new omicron Covid-19 variant, South Africa is bracing for a fourth wave of infections and vaccine mandates are being considered by the government.

South African scientists last week detected the heavily-mutated variant, since designated a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization, which has now been identified in at least 24 countries around the world.

Omicron is rapidly becoming the dominant variant on South Africa, with the country's National Institute for Communicable Diseases saying it is seeing an "exponential increase in infections," with 74% of virus genomes sequenced in the last month belonging to the new variant.

In a televised address on Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said epidemiologists and disease modelers were warning that South Africa should expect a fourth wave of Covid-19 in early December, with the variant now found in all of the country's provinces.

Although the government has vowed to monitor infections and hospitalization rates closely, expectations are that any renewed measures would not be as severe as those introduced in December 2020, when the delta variant fueled a second wave of infections.

However, Oxford Economics said depending on the severity of the fourth wave, the economy could start 2022 on a "much safer footing than previously thought.".