Covid-19 Third Wave Latest: SA virus cases rising rapidly says DOH

South African has not yet hit the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic although the number of new cases is still rising rapidly the Deprment of Health announced in a statement on Wednesday night.

In its statement on rising cases the DOH said the South Africa has a daily surveillance system which monitors the key indicators for resurgence and the main indicators that are monitored are mainly daily positive cases; the positivity rate; which is the number of positive tests divided by the total tests done; hospital admissions and mortality

“For ease of comparison, we normally report on trends and we do the 7 day average as daily cases fluctuate and are hence not very useful,” the DOH said.

In the last reporting week (3-9 May 2021) the DOH noted the following:

• There was an increase in new cases from 8 593 cases in the preceding seven days (26th April – 2nd May) to 12 531 cases in the last seven days (3rd – 9th May) constituting a 46% increase.
• The 14-days comparisons also showed that the cases increased from 17 017 in the preceding 14 days to 21 124 cases in the last 14 days, an overall 24% increase.
• All provinces showed a positive percentage increase with Northern Cape showing a 68% increase in the last 7 days followed by Gauteng at 63%, Limpopo at 47%, North West at 42% and Western Cape at 39%.
• The new COVID-19 related deaths increased by 18,22% in the last 7 days (3 -9 May) to 318 from 269 in the preceding 7 days (26th April – 2nd May).
• However, the 14-days comparison showed the deaths decreased by 28,93% to 587 in the last 14 days compared to 826 in the preceding 14 days.
• The cumulative case fatality ratio is 3,43% (54 735/1 596 595). Eastern Cape (21%), Gauteng (20%), KwaZulu-Natal (19%) and Western Cape (21%) account for 81% of all reported deaths.
• There were 25 health care workers who tested positive in the last 7 days (3rd – 9th May).

“Cumulatively, 56 059 HCW have tested positive, of these 14.35% (7 839/56 059) required admission, 6 881 (87,78%) have been discharged, and 83 are currently admitted. Health care workers constitute 3.51% of all cases of COVID-19 reported in the country. Accumulatively, a total of 874 deaths have been recorded among the health care workers,” the DOH said.

“Hospital admissions have not shown an increase. As much as these figures are worrying, our resurgence dashboard, which was developed by the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium, which is updated thrice a week, still shows that we have not reached a resurgence threshold though some districts in the country are fast approaching the threshold.”

Department of Health

The National Department of Health is working with provinces to update their resurgence plans to ensure that these are activated, and these plans mainly focus on the following:

• Case management
• Contact tracing.
• Oxygen availability
• Bed capacity (general beds and intensive care beds)
• Respiratory support equipment
• Human resources

“As the country we are on high alert and we know that the main drivers of the new wave will either be the resurgence of new variants and/or the fatigue from adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions. To counter these we are working closely with our genomic sequencing team to ensure that we are able to pick up the new variants earlier,” the DOH said.

“We want to assure South Africans that we have not yet hit the third wave however we are at risk and we hence need to be on heightened vigilance as a country.”

Deparment of Health