Mkhize says SA already in third wave of Covid-19 pandemic – report

South Africa is in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a news report.

Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize has been as quoted as saying, in communication to provinces, that the country was in “a third wave, even if not fitting in technical definition”.

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“Kindly note that the Covid-19 positive cases are rising rapidly. The numbers will now longer go down other than if we start intensive containment measures,” News24 quotes Mkhize as saying.

This comes as a million doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine are expected to arrive next week, which will be allocated to healthcare workers.

Earlier, the Covid-19 Working Group of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (Assa) member, Adam Lowe, said the severity of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic would depend on whether it arrives in May or July/August.

Lowe said the data indicated that the third wave would follow the pattern of the so-called Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919.