South Africa officially enters third Covid-19 wave

South Africa has officially entered into a third wave of Covid-19 infections after it reported 9,149 new cases on Thursday (10 June).

The country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said the increase in cases has brought the national seven-day moving average incidence (5,959 cases) which exceeds the new wave threshold as defined by the government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC).

The MAC defines the new wave seven-day moving average threshold as 30% of the peak incidence of the previous wave.

The country has now reported a total of 1,722,08 cases, with the 9,149 new cases representing a 15.7% positivity rate based on tests competed.

A further 100 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 57,410 to date. There was an increase of 844 admissions in the past 24 hours and 127 additional in-hospital deaths reported in the past 24 hours.

The majority of new cases today are from the Gauteng province (61%), followed by the Western Cape (10%) province.

Both the Free State and North West provinces accounted for 6%. The cumulative number of cases by province is shown below:

Hopes third wave is less severe 

Western Cape premier Alan Winde said that all indicators show that his province has already entered a third wave. This will sadly result in more hospitalisations and deaths in the Western Cape, he said in a digital press briefing on Thursday (10 June).

“Our current projections are that this third wave will be less severe than the second wave, but we cannot be sure at this stage.

“That is why it requires every single person to play their part and “flatten the curve” by making sure that you don’t get infected by Covid-19 or spread Covid-19 during this time.

“With vaccines starting to arrive in South Africa, we are a small step closer to beating Covid-19. That is why we must not give up now and why we must fight back by protecting ourselves and our loved ones.”

South Africa moved to an adjusted level 2 lockdown at the end of May after several months of low transmission. The latest restrictions include:

• An evening curfew between 23h00 – 04h00;
• Non-essential establishments such as restaurants and bars must close at 22h00 to allow staff to travel before curfew;
• All gatherings are limited to 100 people indoors and 250 people outdoors;
• Where a venue is too small to accommodate these people, then no more than 50% of the venue capacity can be used;
• Funerals remain restricted to 100 people, while after-funeral gatherings remain prohibited.
• Night vigils, after- funeral gatherings and ‘after-tears’ gatherings are not allowed.

Read: Load shedding cost South Africa around R25 billion in the last two weeks: MEC