[ad_1]
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has confirmed that previous reports that South Africa’s economic center, Gauteng, was officially experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 infections, were inaccurate.
In a statement issued late Tuesday afternoon, the NICD clarified that during the press conference earlier in the day, at the SACMC Outbreak Explorer online launch, one of the members of the COVID-Modeling Consortium South Africa’s 19 (SACMC) got it wrong: by suggesting that Gauteng had entered a second wave.
“This was a mistake. Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal meet the definition of a second wave, while Gauteng is experiencing a period of sustained rise as indicated by the charts, ”the NICD said in its retraction.
Gauteng remains in the number one spot, with the highest number of Covid-19 cases nationwide.
READ MORE: Eastern Cape is running out of hospital beds, Discovery Health reveals
During his address to the nation on Monday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that the majority of new infections occurred in the 15-19 age group in major driving provinces.
Ramaphosa revealed that recent Rage matric parties contributed to a large number of infections, with at least 1000 young people from Gauteng testing positive, having attended these events.
ALSO READ: (Outside) Rage: A party so good it could kill Grandma
Meanwhile, in launching the Epidemic Explorer dashboard, which will analyze the risk of resurgence, present metrics to prepare for future outbreaks and monitor hospital admissions, on Thursday, the metrics indicated the size of the case load in an area such as it was measured per 100,000 inhabitants.
This could be used to compare the size of the epidemic between areas.
The data shows that hospital admissions increased steadily in Gauteng compared to the previous months.
Metrics indicate that the city of Johannesburg, Tshwane and West Rand were at the top of the revival in the province.
As of Monday, the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases detected is 866,127 with 5,163 new cases identified, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize confirmed.
175 more Covid-19-related deaths were reported: 93 in the Eastern Cape, 16 in the Free State, 5 in KwaZulu-Natal, 4 in Gauteng, 5 in the North West, 20 in the Northern Cape, and 32 in the Western Cape.
“Of the 107 deaths reported today, 4 occurred in the last 24 hours: 1 in Gauteng, 2 in KwaZulu Natal and 1 in the Western Cape,” Mkhize said.
This brings the total number of Covid-19-related deaths to 23,451. Recoveries now stand at 762746 .
A cumulative total of 5,884,227 tests have been completed with 25,049 new tests performed since the last report.
READ NEXT: The regulator urges the public to take the Covid-19 vaccine once it has been implemented
- This article has been updated to reflect the retraction issued by the NICD, after initially reporting that Gauteng was officially in the midst of a second wave of Covid-19 infections.
For more news your way, download The Citizen app to iOS and Android.
[ad_2]