Good news for SA on virus front
REPRODUCTION RATE: DECLINE COMPARED TO 1 WAVE ST
New variant still more infectious and transmissible than before – expert.
It is time for South Africa’s government to come up with a sophisticated plan of relaxing lockdown restrictions as the country’s Covid-19 reproduction rate has declined, meaning those infected with the virus can now transmit it to fewer people.
According to research by Reproduction Live, which assesses whether Covid-19 is multiplying or dying out, SA saw a decline compared to the first wave, which was at 0.7 in July last year.
However, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases recorded a reproductive rate of 1.1 as of 26 July, 2020.
The figure dipping to 0.66 was good news as the aim was to reduce the reproduction rate to below 1 to decrease infection, said Professor Glenda Davison, head of biometric sciences department at Cape Peninsula University.
“The reproduction rate is an indication of how many people one infected person on average infects. So if the reproduction rate is two, it means each Covid-19 infected patient will on average transmit the virus to two others.
“The aim is to reduce this to below one as that means that infection will decrease. A reproduction rate of 0.66 is therefore good news,” she said.
While Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal
had the highest number of infectious people, it was Free State and Mpumalanga which had the highest reproductive rate.
However, the exact number of infected people is not really known, said epidemiologist Professor Jo Barnes.
“It also depends whether that data represents most of the cases as a lot of [people] didn’t even seek help,” Barnes said.
Despite the low reproduction rate, the new variant was more infectious and transmissible than before, Davison said.
“Before the lockdown, the curve was increasing at a very fast rate and scientists estimated that it was about 50% more transmissible. If we go back to having large gatherings and not taking preventative precautions, we could see a third wave,” she said.