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To contain the new increase, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced stricter restrictions Monday night, including for public gatherings. A new ban on the sale of alcohol was also established. The curfew now applies from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Ramaphosa is currently in quarantine after coming into contact with a person with COVID last week.
The country, which is caught in a second wave of infections, has recorded more than a million coronavirus cases and more than 27,000 COVID-related deaths since March, health authorities said Sunday. “We have let our guard down and sadly now we are paying the price,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address to the nation the next day.
To compound anxiety, a new variant of the virus that is believed to be more transmittable is spreading in South Africa. John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa) said the variant in South Africa was spreading rapidly and is likely responsible for most of the second wave of the pandemic there.
Passengers stranded at airports
The mutated variety has led many countries to impose restrictions on travelers from South Africa. This had caused chaos in the aviation industry and among passengers stranded at airports. Tracy-lee De Wet came to South Africa to help her mother bury her partner. His flight to Ireland, where he lives, was canceled. “There is a lot of fear. Will I get home? When will I get home? What’s going to happen to my job?” De Wet told DW that the situation was stressful and exhausting.
Travel restrictions against South Africa have left passengers stranded at airports
Tshuzde Brancks Minga, who lives in Dallas, United States, has been stranded at the Johannesburg airport for two days. “I have no money. I have nothing. I just want to go home to my wife and kids,” he said.
The Eastern Cape province around Port Elizabeth and the Western Cape province around Cape Town have been the hardest hit by the pandemic. The health infrastructure is at the limit of its capacity. According to President Ramaphosa, the first vaccines are not expected to arrive in South Africa until next year. The restrictions are having a devastating effect on the economy.
New Sars-CoV-2 variant in Nigeria
In Nigeria, where a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was also discovered last week, researchers are cautiously optimistic that it is a local mutation. This means that it is not necessarily more contagious, as is the case with the mutations originally found in the UK and now in South Africa.
The new variant was discovered last week by scientists at the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) in southeastern Nigeria. ACEGID Director Christian Happi emphasized that scientists were racing to unlock knowledge about the Nigerian variant and urged people not to “extrapolate.” More research was needed to establish the scope of the new threat.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa quarantined himself after contact with an infected person.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa quarantined himself after contact with an infected person.
Africa is not as affected as most of the world
Nigeria has recorded more than 82,000 COVID cases, with 1,246 deaths. The number is considered very modest in view of the country’s population of some 200 million people. But since the beginning of the month, cases have increased by several hundred a day. Significant increases were detected in Lagos, the economic capital, prompting authorities to reinstate the curfew and restrict gatherings to no more than 50 people.
Africa has recorded a total of about 2.4 million cases, just 3.6% of the global count, although testing is also much less widespread. The continent’s death toll of 57,000 is less than a fifth that of the United States.
However, CDC Africa Director John Nkengasong called on Africans not to let their guard down, warning of the danger of a second wave of infection.
Thuso Khumalo contributed to this report
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