Western Cape ‘remains in fourth wave’
The head of the Western Cape Health Department Keith Cloete says the province remains in the fourth wave of Covid-19, although it is seeing a steady decline in positive cases.
Cloete was speaking in a provincial briefing on Covid-19 and vaccination updates.
He said since December 99% of cases were driven by the Omicron variant.
“We have a very clear picture after the first three waves of the fourth wave. We have not excited the fourth wave yet but it is actively declining. The positivity is also on the decline.
“The national trend is Gauteng is now amid the end of wave threshold but all the other provinces, including the Western Cape, still remain in the fourth wave. There are smaller decreases everywhere.
“There has been an 8% decrease week-on-week, we are just about 2000 cases per day over the last 7 days average. Positivity has come down to 40% and we started to see a decline in the hospital admissions.
We are also seeing early signs of the decline in deaths so when we got to 600 cases per day, we would have excited the fourth wave,” added Cloete.
He warned the country is likely to see another wave in the coming winter month.
“There is a pattern that is emerging for Covid-19, following what has happened with the four waves it is safe to predict that the fifth wave is coming in the winter month.
“The biggest thing we have learned from the fourth wave is that there is an epidemiological transition from the pandemic to what we call the endemic nature of Covid-19, so we seemingly are entering an endemic phase of Covid-19. We expect future waves to have even a lower impact on the healthcare system.”
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