Covid 19 5th wave could be more devastating

GAUTENG is in the early stages of the 5th Covid-19 wave.

The country is in the crosshairs of the emerging fifth wave. Within the next four weeks it will probably spread with speed as we ignore its emergence.

It is indeed callous to blatantly ignore health measures designed to mitigate against the fifth wave, whose viral footprints are making its impact as winter approaches.

We will be forced to go into a higher lockdown, as the nation and its strained and drained dedicated medical teams fight an uphill struggle to contain the escalating fifth wave, as it slowly envelops the country.

In a life and death struggle, a deadly war of attrition is in progress between man and microbe, as the new wave increases infections and possibly results in many deaths.

A biological intruder, in a new variant, has penetrated the inner sanctums of our environment, as it stealthily unleashes its venom on the unwary and the ignorant.

The only safe strategy is to retreat from its trajectory and to wear any battle gear to ward off its invisible beams of death.

The ruthless war between man and microbe is intensifying in the race to contain and defeat the approaching biological storm, as it menacingly looms over the horizon, threatening to engulf the nation, as we slacken our defence by not adhering to lockdown regulations.

By defying rules and regulations we will all become statistics on a major scale.

According to medical experts, many people are already infected with the new mutated strain of the virus.

And by late May, thousands more people will be infected.

The way to flatten the curve is to reduce the virus's reproductive number, the number of other people that an infected person infects.

At a personal level, we can reduce this number by exercising rigid health measures at every level.

Unless and until we rigorously exercise social distancing, we stand no chance of obliterating the menace of the fifth Covid-19 waves from our shores.

Most worrisome for the authorities, however, is the Covid-19 “tsunami” effect, the exponential rapidity of spread.

The fifth wave is upon us. Vigilance, extreme health alertness and medical care are our only weapons of survival.

FAROUK ARAIE | Benoni