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By IOL Reporter 
1 hour ago
Cape Town – Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced late Wednesday that the country is now experiencing a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He stressed that four provinces are the key drivers of this new wave, according to criteria formulated by “our scientists and modeling teams.”
The majority of new cases today are from the Western Cape (30%), followed by the Eastern Cape (24%), KwaZulu-Natal (23%) and Gauteng (17%). Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West each accounted for 1% of the new cases, while the Northern Cape accounted for less than 1%.
“It is also important to note that today we have exceeded 6,000 in terms of new cases and the total number of new cases identified today is 6,709, which gives us a total of 828,598 cases accumulated today,” Mkhize said.
Today a total of 135 Covid-19-related deaths have been reported: Eastern Cape 56, Free State 15, Gauteng 16, KwaZulu-Natal 7 and Western Cape 48. This brings the total to 22,574 deaths, with the number of Recoveries now standing at 754658.
A total of 5,690,263 tests have been completed, of which 38,200 have been carried out since the last report.
Mkhize also said that there are “some seriously concerning issues that I need to bring to the public’s attention”:
- The current positivity rate is 18%, well above the ideal 10% recommended by the MAC in Covid-19.
- You will notice on the seven-day moving average chart that the KZN and Gauteng rally increases are exponential. This means that we should expect faster rising numbers with a higher peak than in the first wave.
- In the last two days, the age distribution of the new cases showed a different pattern than the normal one: the peak age in this period is in the age group of 15 to 19 years. This is believed to be due to a large number of parties involving young people who drink alcohol without adhering to non-pharmaceutical interventions, for example, wearing masks, social distancing, and disinfecting hands and surfaces. This inevitably leads to super-spread events that spread to the rest of the country, as this age group is highly mobile and most carriers are asymptomatic.
” If this trajectory continues, our healthcare system will be overwhelmed by the numbers. Therefore, part of the recommendations that the provinces themselves are putting forward is that large gatherings and parties should be urgently reduced, ” Mkhize said.
” We would like to indicate that, having observed the trends in the last two weeks, we had already sent a letter to all MEC urging them to prepare their respective provinces for a second wave.
” The key issues we have raised are that provinces need to ensure that test response times are as fast as possible to facilitate patient flow; assess bed capacity, including recovery of field hospital beds; respond urgently to staff and equipment needs; and strengthen monitoring and evaluation and reporting to the national department. ”
In a brief statement on Wednesday, Lucky Fish Events, the organizer of Plett Rage and also JBay Rage, JBay Rocks, Wanderbay NYE & Alcazar NYE, announced the cancellation of the event, which had originally been postponed from December to January 2021.
“From what happened recently during the period in which Ballito Rage took place in KZN (an event that is owned by a separate company), which took place from November 28 to December 3, it is clear that events of this nature are uncontrollable regardless of the Covid-19 preventive measures implemented, ”the statement read.
Meanwhile, Britain’s drug regulator has warned that people with a history of significant allergies should not receive Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine after two people reported adverse reactions on the first day of implementation.
Starting with the elderly and frontline workers, Britain began mass vaccinating its population on Tuesday, part of a global push that poses one of the greatest logistical challenges in peacetime history.
National Health Service medical director Stephen Powis said the advice had changed after two NHS workers reported anaphylactoid reactions associated with the vaccine.
MESS
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