SOUTH AFRICA SAYS 12 MILLION ‘PROBABLY’ HAD CORONAVIRUS

CAPETOWN, South Africa — about 12 million people in South Africa have “probably” been infected with the coronavirus, but that startlingly high number has not caused a similarly high death rate and might indicate a widespread “level of immunity,” the country’s health minister says.

More than 20 percent of South Africa’s population of 58 million have had the virus at some point, Dr. Zweli Mkhize estimated this week. He cited studies that found the presence of coronavirus antibodies in blood samples taken from parts of the population. The findings have prompted the government to launch a national study, he said.

“South Africa has seen the surge receding, and thus raises the question of the level of immunity that may already be existing in society,” he said.

Other studies have indicated that up to 40 percent of the population might be immune to the virus, Mkhize said. Some South African experts suggest that Africa’s most developed economy may be approaching herd immunity, but scientists believe at least 70 percent to 80 percent of a population needs to be immune before there’s any effect. And with Covid-19 it’s unclear how long that immunity might last.

With confirmed virus cases dropping significantly, President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday evening announced that South Africa’s borders will reopen as of October 1, with visitors required to show negative coronavirus test results not longer than 72 hours before departure. visitors will not be permitted from countries deemed at high risk, Ramaphosa said, not naming names.

Ramaphosa also announced further relaxed restrictions on public gatherings, to a maximum of 250 people indoors and 500 outdoors.

The president warned that the second wave of the pandemic in some countries has been worse than the first. “A second wave would be devastating to our country,” he said.

South Africa’s number of confirmed virus cases have dropped in recent weeks after a peak in late July that saw the country recording up to 15,000 cases daily, and raised fears that health services in some major cities might collapse. Official figures showed just 772 new cases on Tuesday.

South Africa is also seeing declines in hospital admissions, people in intensive care units and deaths attributed to Covid-19, health minister Mkhize said.

“Consistency across these indicators reassures us that, indeed, we are in the midst of a trough in the pandemic,” he said.

South Africa has just over 650,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, according to the government’s latest official count, the eighth-highest caseload in the world. At its peak, South Africa was the fifth most affected country, behind the United States, India, Brazil and Russia, which all have much larger populations.

Experts have tried for months to figure out why South Africa’s official death rate from Covid-19 is low—15,641 people have died, according to government figures. There were fears at the start of the pandemic that poverty, crowded living conditions, restricted access to clean water and the high prevalence of tuberculosis and HIV would put South Africa, and Africa at large, in danger of millions of deaths.