South Africa entering fifth wave of Covid-19 infections – Phaahla
Health Minister Joe Phaahla says the country is entering a fifth wave of Covid-19 infections much earlier than expected.
“It does suggest that we may actually be entering the fifth wave much earlier and we will have to wait for few more days, maybe another seven days, to be very sure that this was not just sporadic uptick, but it is a sustained uptick.”
Phaahla says the Easter holidays may have contributed to the spike in new infections.
“Recently it was a period of Ramadan for the Muslims, and Passover for Jewish faith, there have been a lot of religious gatherings which also could have triggered for the spike we have seen in the last 14 days. Because this coincides with the 14 days Good Friday and Easter long weekend.”
He says the next 7 days will indicate whether the infections are driven by new variant, existing variants or was by the Easter holidays.
“We cannot afford to drop all prevention measures; it is not a correct public health approach to say because there is lot of natural immunity and vaccine-driven immunity we must just let the virus spread, because this will cause a lot of illness and distress amongst people.”
He says there has been increase in hospital admissions, with 2027 patients receiving treatment and 192 in intensive care.
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