The Department of Health has announced this evening, 9 December, that South Africa has entered its second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The country is now said to meet the criteria formulated by scientists and modelling teams to determine the second wave of infection.
The Department of Health has announced that four provinces namely, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng have been identified as the key drivers of this new wave.
An impassioned plea for responsible social behaviour by Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize as we battle a resurgence of #Covid19. pic.twitter.com/Xb5AU9FIDS
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) December 9, 2020
The majority of new cases today are from the Western Cape (30%) followed by the Eastern Cape (24%) then KwaZulu-Natal (23%) and Gauteng which has accounted for 17%. The Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West each accounted for 1% of new cases, while the Northern Cape accounted for less than 1%.
The new cases of Covid-19 have breached the 6 000 mark with a total of 6 709 new cases identified, bringing the country to a total of 828 598 cumulative cases today.
The Department of Health wishes to highlight the following serious concerns:
- The positivity rate today is 18%, which is well above the ideal 10% that the MAC on Covid-19 recommends
- From the seven day moving average graph, the rapid increase in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng is exponential. This means we should expect faster-rising numbers at a higher peak than in the first wave
- In the last two days, the age distribution of new cases showed a different pattern from the norm: The peak age in this period is in the 15-19 age group. This is believed to be due to a large number of parties involving young people drinking alcohol with no adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions, for example, wearing masks, social distancing as well as hand and surface sanitising. This, inevitably, leads to super-spreader events which spill over into the rest of the country as this age group is highly mobile and the majority of the carriers are asymptomatic. If this trajectory continues, our health care system will be overwhelmed by the numbers. Hence, part of the recommendations being tabled by provinces themselves is that large gatherings and parties must be urgently curtailed.
The Department of Health further stated, having observed the trends in the past couple of weeks, it has already sent a letter to all MECs urging them to prepare their respective provinces for a second wave. The key issues raised are that the provinces need to ensure testing turnaround times are as quick as possible to facilitate patient flow; assess bed capacity, including recalling field hospital beds; attend to staffing and equipment needs urgently; and tighten up monitoring, evaluation and reporting to the national department.
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