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Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize says that South Africa has overcome the first wave of positive Covid-19 cases, but warned that citizens must remain cautious to avoid a resurgence.
Speaking in a series of media interviews on Monday morning (September 7), the minister said that the latest data shows a clear improvement for the country.
“We never really knew what to expect, and the reality is that we can now safely say that we have passed the increase. There were days when we used to have 11,000 people who were positive and now we see numbers around 2,000.
“We haven’t gotten over the worst yet. We are concerned about what may happen in terms of a resurgence in the country, “he said.
Mkhize said the sooner the country can ease the level of restrictions, the better.
“It would have been logical that from level 3 to level 2, there would have been an increase in the number; it didn’t happen. We do not want to draw conclusions, because we have seen what happened in other countries where there was a pause for a few weeks before a resurgence, “he said.
“The sooner we get to level one, the better. The sooner we have a normal economy, the better. It is better for the country. We hope South Africans understand that to get there, we have to make sure we are equally cautious at level two, so there is no resurgence. “
Mkhize said that around 88% of the people infected with Covid-19 in South Africa have recovered. He added that the country ranked fifth globally in the number of global positive cases, but subsequently fell to number seven. He said that if things continue as they are, the country will soon drop to eighth place.
“We are at a point where our numbers are steadily decreasing, the number of hospitalizations has dropped and the number of people in ICUs is shrinking.
“We have passed the wave. It shot up around June and July was the highest. For about three weeks, we have experienced a steady decline. We are not seeing new peaks or waves. We really hope we don’t have a second raise, ”he said.
However, the minister warned that it is too early to celebrate.
“We must be very optimistic, but still very cautious. We are not yet seeing the end of the disease, ”he said.
“We’ve seen other countries that celebrated a reduction in numbers, got to a point where they didn’t have any patients testing positive, and then all of a sudden it flared again … We must maintain our precautions and all containment measures must remain instead”.
Read: What to Expect from South Africa’s Second Quarter GDP Data
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