NICD says Covid-19 third wave has not yet peaked
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) says it is still too early to confirm whether South Africa has reached the peak of the Covid-19 third wave as residents of some areas have not been able to get to testing facilities.
The Covid-19 testing rate has decreased over the past two weeks and according to the NICD testing has been limited in certain areas especially KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng where wide scale unrest, violence and looting erupted.
According to the latest data, 20 025 tests were conducted on Tuesday.
“Thus, trends in the coming week will be important in confirming whether the peak of third wave has indeed been reached or not," says the institute statement.
By Tuesday evening, South Africa recorded 8 929 new Covid-19 cases for the day.
The NICD says the latest increase represents a 22.2% positivity rate.
A further 596 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 67 676.
Gauteng recorded 3 295 cases in the last 24 hours and accounts for 37% of the country’s cases followed by the Western Cape with 19% and KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 11%.
The 7-day moving average daily number of cases has decreased.
Senior Medical Epidemiologist for Public Health Surveillance and Geospatial Modelling at the NICD, Dr Harry Moultrie says the national 7-day moving average has declined since 6 July 2021, largely because of the decline in Gauteng.
"The percentage testing positive however increased in Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and Western Cape in week 28 compared to previous weeks. While the percentage testing positive has decreased in Gauteng, Limpopo and North West, the percentage testing positive remained very high (>35%) in these provinces,” says Moultrie.
However, there has been an increase of 808 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours, with 17 178 people currently admitted in both public and private facilities.
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