[LISTEN] Covid-19 cases ‘expected’ to top 10k new cases this week

This was confirmed by epidemiologist Professor Abdool Karim, who was part of a panel that was briefing media on Monday morning.

"So there are three things that need to be done to deal with this virus. We can expect higher transmissibility is likely, so we are going to get more cases quickly. We are already seeing early evidence of this and if that happens the cases concerned I am expecting that we will see 10 000 cases by the end of the week per day. Our public health measures work.

"Finally our biggest challenge is to prevent super spreading events and make sure we reduce the risk of transmission indoors." 

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The number of new Covid-19 cases in the country has continued to rise rapidly since last week.

This rapid increase has been attributed to a new variant, called the Omicron, which was first sequenced South Africa. 

While not much is known about this new variant, scientists believe that the vaccine will be able to prevent severe disease.