By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), reports 785 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,674,042.
This increase represents a 5.7% positivity rate.
Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of COVID-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the NDoH reports 183 deaths, and of these, 0 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 99 412 to date.
Meanwhile New Zealand is removing the requirement for vaccinated travellers to self-isolate on arrival, acknowledging that its rapidly spreading omicron outbreak makes such border restrictions pointless.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also signaled she will speed up the phased reopening of the border, potentially allowing tourists from anywhere in the world to return much sooner than the current October start date.
“As I’ve said many times through this pandemic, New Zealand has and will continue to forge our own path and strategy. Caution has served us well, “Ardern told a news conference Monday in Wellington. “As we continue to move through the omicron outbreak and peak, we will continue to remove restrictions when advised it is safe to do so.”
From midnight on March 2, vaccinated New Zealanders arriving from Australia will no longer need to serve a week of self-isolation and will only have to return two negative rapid antigen tests. The government also brought forward the date from which New Zealanders in other countries can return home, to midnight March 4 from March 13.
Currently, the border is due to open to Australians by July and to all other tourists by October. Ardern said cabinet “will shortly consider bringing these steps forward.”
“The advice from our experts is that getting over the peak of omicron should be factored into this timing,” she said.
The government expects the outbreak to peak in mid to late March. New case numbers have jumped to more than 14,000 a day.