SA not entering second wave ‘just yet’
DESPITE a sharp rise in reported coronavirus cases in the country over the past week, South Africa is not entering a second wave of the pandemic just yet, health experts say.
The number of reported cases has remained stable for a few weeks, with cases averaging under 2 000.
But last week various cluster outbreaks sparked an increase in reported cases. The biggest hot-spot areas were in the Eastern Cape, Free State and the Western Cape.
Even with increasing cluster outbreaks, the head of the Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, said South Africa was not in a second wave and was not on its way there.
He cautioned about alarmist rhetoric and said that, on average, case numbers in most areas in the country were low.
“South Africa is not in a second wave right now, and it is not entering a second wave right now. We have an outbreak in the Eastern Cape and in the Garden Route area of the Western Cape.
“If those outbreaks are not effectively controlled, we run the risk of going into a second wave. We are actually in a good position of low transmission in the rest of the country,” Abdool Karim said yesterday.
Similar sentiments were shared by SA Medical Research Council member Professor Glenda Gray, who said what was happening in the Eastern Cape was a classic case of community transmission being driven by superspreader events.
She said rising cases were not unusual at the moment and were part of pandemic patterns.
“The ongoing transmission will always continue until we have a vaccine or herd immunity. There will be events that cause super-spreading outbreaks. Super-spreader events drive transmissions even further and affect people who were not affected in the first phase of the pandemic,” Gray said.
Gray and Abdool Karim said they were concerned about the festive season and people going to areas that were unaffected by the virus, particularly rural areas.
“My concern is the December period when there are three things that are going to happen that worry me. Firstly, that people become complacent while on holiday and they stop wearing their masks and not do social distancing, and the second thing is they start going to parties and we will end up with super-spreader events.
“The third is, I am very worried about inter-generational family gatherings. Children are meeting their parents and grandparents and putting the elderly at risk. So those are the three things that worry me … and (they) could give us a second wave in January,” Abdool Karim cautioned.