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- The actual number of people infected with Covid-19 could be roughly 18 times higher based on estimates from antibody studies.
- The revised models predict that there are around 12 million, or roughly 20% of South Africans with detected or undetected coronavirus.
- As of Monday, 650,749 cases of coronavirus and 15,499 deaths were registered.
An estimated 12 million people, almost a fifth of the population, may have contracted Covid-19, says the Health Minister, as the country registers a significant decrease in new infections.
South Africa has so far registered 650,749 cases or 47.8 per cent of the total number registered in Africa. At least 15,499 of those infected had died.
But the actual number of people who were infected could be much higher, possibly 18 times more, based on estimates extrapolated from sample antibody studies.
The revised models “currently predict that there are probably around 12 million” South Africans with detected or undetected coronavirus, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a statement released overnight.
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“This translates to about 20% of the population.”
South Africa was conducting a national study aimed at providing accurate figures on the prevalence of antibodies to coronavirus, a sign of infection, among its 58 million people.
Immunity
Mkhize said the drop in the number of infections detected daily “raises the question of the level of immunity that may already exist in society.”
Leading vaccinologist Shabir Madhi, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, suggested that infection rates could reach 40% in densely populated parts of the country.
“What we have seen in South Africa, at least according to early data … is that in densely populated areas of the country … between 35 and 40 percent of people have been infected with this virus,” Madhi, who he is also in charge of the South African phase of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine trial, he said in an online meeting on Sunday.
The number of cases in South Africa decreased from 10,000 to 15,000 per day in July to just under 2,000 in recent days.
On Monday, the number of new daily infections dropped to 956, the second time in less than a week that the number fell below 1,000.
