Rise in Covid-19 infections a concern

THE NEW Covid-19 infection surge by 137% is extreme cause for concern. Under these circumstances it becomes imperative that President Ramaphosa addresses the nation without delay.

Many parts of the country are in the grip of the fifth wave as infections continue to climb. A pivotal factor in this steep climb is that a huge portion of the population has discarded mask wearing in public.

The new strain will spread across the country as admissions into hospitals increase as winter envelops the nation.

The worrisome increase is being driven by BA.4/5 the new, more transmissible offshoot of omicron that is now dominant in the country. The normal seasonal winter flu is raging across the country, masking the accurate compilation and trajectory of the new Covid strain.

Many sick with the winter flu could be infected with the new strain, unaware that they could be unintentionally aiding in its spread. This means that our data could be missing a whole lot of infections across the country.

The new BA.4 and BA.5 variants have now reached the US and, according to experts, have an advantageous set of spike-protein mutations that allow them to partially evade immune responses that protect against the previous strains. The most troubling aspect of the current surge is that we are unsure of its speed of infection, its lethality. Could it mutate into a variant that renders current vaccines obsolete?

The data that we rely on, such as wastewater, hospitalisations among others, are blurry pictures that we are attempting to piece together to figure out the true extent of the spread in depth and scope considering that we have a massive urban and rural population who have virtually no access to any form of medication and medical assistance which could enable us to gauge a reasonable picture of where we stand today.

We are in uncharted waters and sheer pandemic fatigue probably isn’t helping either. People who are over this virus could be ignoring their symptoms and going about their daily lives, while people who are getting reinfected may be getting milder symptoms that they do no recognize as the new variant of Covid.

In a new worrisome development, a South African laboratory study reveals that strains BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages have the ability to evade antibodies from earlier infections and vaccinations.

We will pay an astronomical price in human lives, for not adhering to social distancing rules; defiance in the face of a new wave will lead to upheavals on a huge scale. The carnage in human and economic terms, that will follow, will reshape the course of our nation. FAROUK ARAIE | Benoni