Lockdown reduces number of daily Covid-19 infections

Is it too early to tell if SA is turning the corner in Covid infections?

In the past couple of weeks, South Africa has been seeing an exorbitant increase in the daily infections of the delta variant.

The highest number of recorded infections totalled 26 485 on 3 July, when Gauteng had more than 16 000 active cases. Last night, however, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) statistics showed a decrease in number of the daily infections to 15 501.

President Cyril Ramaphosa had placed the country on adjusted level 4 of lockdown as the country grappled with the double-digit infections. Level 4 restrictions included the ban of alcohol sales and gatherings with a curfew from 9pm until 4am.

Professor Tom Moultrie, director of University of Cape Town’s Centre for Actuarial Research, who contributed to a new published research in the South African Medical Journal, on the effects of alcohol restrictions and the curfew on the number of unnatural deaths in the country, said the impact on the weekly number of unnatural deaths was only statistically significant if the restriction on the sale of alcohol was complete.

“The research showed that the weekly number of unnatural deaths was 49% lower than expected during the level 5 hard lockdown from MarchMay 2020, and was 26% lower than expected when the sale of alcohol was banned, together with curfews of between 4 and 7 hours,” said Moultrie.

“However, the study found no reduction in unnatural deaths when there were partial or norestrictions on the sale of alcohol, with the exception of thesix-week period in June and July 2020, after the end of level 5 lockdown.”

Head of department of global health at Stellenbosch University Jo Barnes said the pandemic was by no means over, especially because there were several new variants of concern that awaited in the wings.

“One, called eta that was first discovered in Nigeria, was already in the country. It was detected in the Garden Route. There was also a delta plus variant in India and lambda was a variant that could cause concern,” she noted.

Barnes said the future shape of the current wave could not be determined (and how long it lasted) could not be predicted on the basis of the past waves.

“Different variants were involved in those waves. If a new variant overtook the present very infectious delta variant, the shape would look very different and the wave will last a lot longer.”