Cape Town – South Africa has officially entered the fourth wave of Covid-19, the National Department of Health said on Saturday.
Speaking to eNCA, Deputy Health Minister Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo confirmed that the country was officially under the fourth wave of the virus.
“When you look at the positivity rate, two weeks ago we were sitting at 1%. But when you look at it now, we’re on 25% positivity rate. Therefore, that indicates that we’re definitely in the fourth wave. The numbers have gone up very fast, especially in Gauteng. But all of us should be on high alert, as the country has moved into the fourth wave,” said Dr Dhlomo.
Health Minister Joe Phaahla also confirmed the development, saying the steep rise in infections had been in line with earlier indications that the Omicron variant had more severe consequences than the previous three waves, IOL reported.
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South Africa’s Covid-19 infections surged to a record three million on Friday, as a new wave driven by the Omicron variant ripped through parts of the country, official figures showed.
The government on Friday reported 16 055 new cases over a 24-hour period, taking the cumulative laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 004 203.
“This increase represents a 24.3% positivity rate,” the government run National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said in a daily update.
#COVID19 UPDATE: A total of 65,990 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 16,055 new cases, which represents a 24.3% positivity rate. A further 25 #COVID19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89,994 to date. See more here: https://t.co/PzzZEUQzNl pic.twitter.com/1qn1apRkri
— NICD (@nicd_sa) December 3, 2021
The majority of new cases reported on Friday, 72%, were detected in Gauteng province, the most populous of the country’s provinces.
Gauteng which hosts the capital Pretoria and the country’s economic and financial hub, Johannesburg, has emerged as the epicentre of the new variant since the new variant was first detected there last week.
A leading epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim had on Monday forecast that coronavirus cases in the continent’s worst hit country, could see daily infections more than treble this week to more than 10 000.
Gauteng province surpassed the projection, recording 11 553 cases on Friday. Other provinces recorded less than 1 000 cases each.
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Additional reporting by AFP
