Complete ban on gatherings would help fight Covid-19 in Gauteng, says SAMRC

The province’s rapidly increasing cases have been a major concern to the Department of Health.

On Thursday, the country recorded 11, 767 new cases, with Gauteng accounting for 64% of the new infections.

A total of 7502 new cases were recorded in Gauteng, bringing the total cases in the province to 529,873.

Virologist and SAMRC vice-president Professor Jeffrey Mphahlele says provincial restrictions would help to bring down the number of infections.

“The additional measures that a hotspot like Gauteng could consider are things related to gatherings and schools as these are really hotspot areas. As you would recall gatherings can act as super spreaders and we have also seen that other countries which have experienced high cases the driver was gatherings.

“So, if Gauteng can ban all gatherings excluding funerals that would go a long way in terms of minimizing the number of infections.

“And I also think the schools that are able to provide online learning could do that form of teaching and learning and that could also go a long way in reducing the number of infections, the school children is not because they suffer severe illness after infections but they do transmit the virus that is why other countries are contemplating to vaccinate the children, they are asymptomatic even if they are infected but that doesn’t mean they can't spread the virus,” says Mphahlele.

Mphahlele says inter-provincial travel should also be discouraged.

“We also think there is an opportunity to discourage interprovincial travels, so if you have a province like Gauteng you can discourage people from vising the province non-essential visits to and from the province should be discouraged.

“When the schools are closed, inter-provincial travel should be discouraged.

“What we can learn is that it is important to act early don’t wait until you have a crisis. Imposing stricter measures early is important to avert a crisis.”

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