By Kaya 959 News
National Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has reassured the country that the COVID-19 third wave has not hit SA.
In a statement, Mkhize says while the department remained on high alert, the current spike in cases did not mean that SA was in its third wave of the pandemic.
He says SA has a daily surveillance system that monitors daily positive cases, the positivity rate, hospital admissions and mortality rate.
“We normally report on trends and we do the seven day average as daily cases fluctuate and are not very useful,” he said.
He says in the last reporting week, there has been an increase in cases.
“The 14-days comparisons also showed that the cases increased in the preceding 14 days showing an overall 24% increase.
“All provinces showed a positive percentage increase with Northern Cape showing a 68% increase in the last seven days followed by Gauteng at 63%, Limpopo at 47%, North West at 42% and Western Cape at 39%,” Mkhize says.
COVID-19 deaths
The new COVID-19 related deaths increased by 18,22% in the last seven days. However, the 14-days comparison showed the deaths decreased by 28,93% in the last 14 days compared to the preceding 14 days.
Mkhize says the cumulative case fatality ratio is 3,43%. In the last week, 25 healthcare workers tested positive and hospital admissions have not increased.
“As much as these figures are worrying, the resurgence dashboard, which was developed by the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium, which is updated thrice a week, still shows that we have not as the country reached a resurgence threshold though some districts in the country are fast approaching the threshold,” Mkhize says.
SA on high alert
Mkhize says the country remains on high alert
“We know that the main drivers of the new wave will either be the resurgence of new variants and/or the fatigue from adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions,” he said.
Mkhize says to counter these, the Health Department is working closely with genomic sequencing team to ensure that they are able to pick up the new variants earlier.
“So we want to assure South Africans that we have not yet hit the third wave however we are at risk and we hence need to be on heightened vigilance as a country,” he said.
On Wednesday, SA yesterday recorded 2 759 new COVID-19 infections. Currently the country’s confirmed case count has climbed to 1 602 031.
A total of 72 new deaths were reported on Wednesday, taking SA’s COVID-related death toll to 54 968.
Active cases
In breaking down the stats, Mkhize says SA has a total of 27 329 active cases.
The cumulative recoveries now stand at 1 519 734, representing a recovery rate of 95%. The number of tests conducted to date is 10 968 926. Of these 37 020 tests were conducted since the last report.
KZN has the highest number of active cases (5 591) followed by Gauteng (5 651) and Free State with (4 984) and Northern Cape (4 445).
The province with the least number of active cases is Eastern Cape (271).
