A third Covid-19 wave: It’s just a question of time

There is a third wave of Covid-19 infections coming and it is just a matter of when and how hard South Africa will be hit.

A third wave of infections is now spreading like wildfire across Europe and, according to reports, the rate of infection is higher than this time last year.

General practitioner Dr Tshego Masemola believes it is now more important than ever for people to remain compliant and be vigilant despite possible lockdown fatigue.

She says while she had a “mild version” of Covid-19, the psychological impact was severe.

“The constant idea of the disease blowing up inside you, visions of being on a ventilator and your own mortality are quite real during the illness.”

“If we all remain responsible and follow the simple guidelines set by the authorities we substantially reduce our chances of contracting the virus substantially,” Masemola said.

This is a tale not dissimilar to South Africa’s second wave, which started peaking in December last year when infection rates rocketed.

Nearly a third of all people contracting Covid-19, some 42 million individuals, live in Europe.

South Africa is heading into winter, or in other words, cold and flu season. However, the country’s recent daily infection rate has remained relatively low.

Towards the end of March, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) regional director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P Kluge said that “with vaccination coverage in the region ranging from less than 1% to 44%, it is also far too early to demonstrate the effect of vaccines on overall Covid-19 hospitalisation and deaths. Nonetheless, early data from Israel, Scotland and the UK, linked to effectiveness against severe disease by the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines, is promising and show lives are being saved.”

In South Africa, the first doses of vaccine have been administered to healthcare workers, but it still constitutes less than 1% of the population.

Now, several countries in Europe have tightened lockdown regulations again as a third wave sweeps through the continent. The Guardian reports that in Germany a rolling average of around 13,000 new cases daily has caused grave concern while France has registered up to 30,000 new daily cases.

Italy has hit a high of 22,000 new daily infections with the Netherlands’ infection rate doubling. Many countries are now in various stages of lockdown with Poland shutting all public places including cinemas, restaurants and theatres among others.

The headline in the UK’s Financial Times on Easter Monday read: “Europe’s third wave: ‘It’s spreading fast and it’s spreading everywhere'”, quoting French Prime Minister Jean Castex in Paris last Thursday.

The B117 variant of Covid-19, also known as the UK variant, seems to have arrived slightly after the South African variant, dubbed 501Y, that had the world up in arms late last year. It is seemingly 80-100% more transmissible than its predecessors.

Last week the WHO expressed concern in a statement  saying that while “in the past month, new cases have decreased by 41% compared with the previous month, there is an upward trend in 12 countries including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Guinea (where an outbreak of Ebola is also ongoing)”.

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