UPDATE: Gauteng NOT ‘officially’ in grip of Covid-19 second wave

The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has confirmed that earlier reports that South Africa’s economic hub Gauteng was officially experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 infections, were inaccurate.

In a statement issued late on Tuesday afternoon, the NICD clarified that during the press briefing earlier in the day, at the online launch of the SACMC epidemic Explorer, one of the members of the South African COVID-19 Modelling Consortium (SACMC) misspoke, when suggesting Gauteng had entered a second wave.

“This was an error. Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal meet the definition of a second wave, whilst Gauteng is experiencing a period of sustained increase as indicated by the plots,” the NICD said in it’s retraction.

Gauteng remains in the number one spot, with the highest number of Covid-19 cases countrywide.

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Risk levels are indicated by colour: Blue for low risk, orange for medium, and magenta for high. Source: South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium (SACMC)

During his address to the nation on Monday evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that the most new infections were occurring in the age group of 15 to 19 years across the key driving provinces.

Ramaphosa revealed recent Rage matric parties contributed a large number of infections, with at least 1 000 youngster from Gauteng testing positive, after having attended these events.

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Meanwhile, launching the Epidemic Explorer dashboard –  which will analyse resurgence risk, presenting metrics to prepare for future outbreaks, and monitoring hospital admissions – on Thursday, the metrics indicated the size of the case load in an area as it was measured per 100,000 population.

This could be used to compare the size of the epidemic between areas.

The data shows that hospital admissions were steadily on the rise in Gauteng compared to the previous months.

The metrics indicate that the City of Johannesburg, Tshwane and the West Rand where at high of the resurgence in the province.

South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium (SACMC)

As of Monday, the cumulative number of detected Covid-19 cases is 866 127 with 5 163 new cases identified, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has confirmed.

175 more Covid-19 related deaths were reported: 93 from Eastern Cape, 16 from the Free State, 5 from KwaZulu-Natal, 4 from Gauteng, 5 from North West, 20 from Northern Cape and 32 from Western Cape.

“Of the 107 deaths reported today, 4 occurred in the past 24 hours: 1 in Gauteng, 2 in KwaZulu Natal and 1 from Western Cape,” Mkhize said.

This brings the total number of Covid-19 related deaths to 23 451 . Recoveries now stand at 762 746 .

A cumulative total of 5 884 227 tests have been completed with 25 049 new tests conducted since the last report.

South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium (SACMC)

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• This article has been updated to reflect the retraction issued by the NICD, after having initially reported that Gauteng was officially in the midst of a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

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