Concerns of third wave remain
CONCERNS about a possible third wave of the coronavirus pandemic remain high, despite assurances from Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize that the government had upped surveillance on possible new variants.
The growing fear over a possible rise in Covid-19 cases has been driven by reports of individuals, who had travelled to India, testing positive on arrival in South Africa. The number of case has been rising in the past week.
A shipping vessel that landed in KwaZulu-Natal has fuelled concerns, as some passengers have tested positive and were in isolation.
India is experiencing rising Covid19 cases, suspected to be driven by a variant first identified in the country.
Mkhize said the government remained concerned about coronavirus cases being detected at border posts. However, the government has yet to decide on closing borders.
“This increase in detection of cases at the ports of entry is of deep concern to us, as a government, and we have been attending to this as a matter of urgency. We have consulted the ministerial advisory committee as well as the genomics team to guide us on the management of travellers at ports of entry during these challenging times.
“The government will be determining the next steps to follow and announcements will be made on the state of variants of concern in our context and what measures will be implemented to mitigate against the importation of Covid-19 in general.”
Mkhize said the B.1.617 variant, identified in India, has not been detected in the country and that a patient who had tested positive for the coronavirus, after travelling from India, had the B.1.351 (or 501Y.V2) variant which remained the most dominant strain in the country.
The B.1.351 (or 501Y.V2) drove South Africa’s second wave of the pandemic late last year. The South African Covid-19 consortium, in its latest modelling, warned that a driver for a third wave as harsh as the second wave would probably be a new variant or several other factors.
“Across scenarios, in the absence of a new variant, we expect the peak of the third wave to be lower than the second wave,” the consortium said. “We, however, see that a slow, weak behavioural response increases admissions for severe/critical Covid-19 cases across most age groups. Younger age groups are expected to have fewer admissions than in the second wave,” the consortium said.
For provincial breakdowns, the consortium expected the wave pattern to differ, but Gauteng was expected to see the highest projected impact of a third wave.
The consortium said that was “due to the higher concentration of working-age adults and people with co-morbidities in the province, and the lower estimates of seroprevalence. Across provinces, the time from an initial increase in transmission to the peak is on average 2 to 3 months”.
The consortium said delaying a possible third wave was crucial in order to allow the government time to vaccinate citizens.
The country’s vaccination programme is expected to start later this month. Health expert Dr Aslam Dasoo said getting the vaccine programme in place while cases remained low should be the government’s priority.
“We are concerned (about a third wave) and it has been anticipated for some time,” Dasoo said. “We need to get vaccinations going at scale, we are not aiming for herd immunity anymore. We are aiming to prevent serious illness, hospitalisation and death.”