Staff Reporter.
With daily new infections of Covid-19 rising in South Africa, medical experts are calling for increased vigilance and adherence to social distancing and mask-wearing protocols to delay the third wave in the country.
After registering around, and even below, 1,000 to 1,500 daily new cases through most of March and April, local Covid-19 infections have started a definite upward trend.
“For the first time since mid-February, new cases rose by more than 2,000 per day for a few consecutive days last week,” said the Bureau for Economic Research on Monday. “The case-positivity ratio is also moving higher, while some districts have seen double-digit increases in the number of active cases over the past two weeks.”
Whether this signals the start of the feared third wave remains to be seen, but, especially in a province like Gauteng, recent metrics are worrying and underscore the importance of South Africa’s vaccine drive for the general public that is set to kick off next week, it said.
Dr Ridhwaan Suliman, a senior researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said there is a notable upturn in the number of South Africa daily coronavirus cases, on a seven-day rolling average basis:
- 8th of January: 16,955
- 8th of February: 3,029
- 8th of March: 1,107
- 8th of April: 789
- 8th of May: 1,711
This trend has been noted by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, which said that data coming from different parts of Gauteng show signs of the province already being in a new wave of infection.
Professor Adrian Puren said that the so-called third wave is difficult to predict as all the different districts in South Africa have varying infection patterns and circumstances to account for.
In Gauteng, for example, the West Rand has shown little to no signs of increased infections, while Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni are at high risk, with cases increasing. Sedibeng, meanwhile, has already moved into another wave, he said.
“Each district needs to be looked at and managed appropriately. Hospitals needs to be ready – and part of that is vaccination.
“It’s critical that healthcare workers have access to vaccines, this will be critical as we approach the third wave,” professor Puren said.
Recent predictive modelling published by the NICD showed that Gauteng is at the highest risk of having a particularly devastating third wave, due to the higher concentration of working-age adults and people with co-morbidities in the province, and the lower estimates of seroprevalence – the level of a pathogen in a population, as measured in blood serum.