{"id":398535,"date":"2020-05-15T20:10:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T18:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=398535"},"modified":"2020-05-15T20:17:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T18:17:00","slug":"13524-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-jump-to-247","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/398535\/13524-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-jump-to-247\/","title":{"rendered":"13,524 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa as deaths jump to 247"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 13,524 confirmed cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is an increase of 785\u00a0cases from the 12,739 cases reported on Thursday, with the country having recorded some of its highest daily infection rates over the past 72-hours.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Mkhize said on Friday (15 May), that the total number of deaths has now reached 247 &#8211; an increase of nine deaths from 238 reported before.<\/p>\n<p>The minister said that he is encouraged by the number of recoveries which currently stands at 6,083. A total of 421,555 tests have been conducted, with 18,537 over the last 24-hours.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As of today, the total number of confirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> cases in South Africa is 13 524, the total number of deaths is 247 and recoveries are now 6083. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mYHCnFoaYP\">pic.twitter.com\/mYHCnFoaYP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1261357117098700801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Globally, coronavirus cases moved past 4.55 million infections, with deaths at more than 304,000, and 1.71 million recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>Wondering whether it\u2019s safe to emerge from lockdown? Watching the daily coronavirus case trackers won\u2019t help much. A better indication might come from the length of the lines outside the doctor\u2019s office, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p>To strike the right balance between restarting the economy and guarding against new waves of the pandemic, countries must focus on more than daily infection numbers and death tolls, according to scientists.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because these are lagging indicators, showing the virus\u2019s trajectory days or even weeks ago. The actual danger level in real time is better seen in more direct indicators.<\/p>\n<p>Countries \u201cneed to build up a picture from a range of sources, and some of that is the death data, some of that is the infection data, and then some of that perhaps is survey data,\u201d said Graham Cooke, a professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, which is working on a government survey of 100,000 people this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking at the number of infections diagnosed as such is quite difficult to interpret on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moving Averages<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Scientists also suggest focusing on multiday moving averages to avoid overreacting to tiny changes in daily tallies.<\/p>\n<p>In Germany, for instance, the so-called reproduction rate started creeping up over one again in recent days, just as the country eased its lockdown &#8212; meaning that every infected person was statistically passing it to more than one other person, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p>But scientists advising the German government said individual days couldn\u2019t be relied on because of the lag in data, and the rate has since fallen.<\/p>\n<p>Germany reported a seven-day R0 &#8211; or R-naught &#8211; estimate of 0.88 Thursday, which means 100 people would only infect 88 people currently.<\/p>\n<p>Countries are trying to keep this transmission number below 1 so that the disease eventually peters out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just need to look at the graph of daily figures to see the problems\u201d with only relying on that data, said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene &amp; Tropical Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>Moving averages can help \u201csmooth out the fluctuations. This is the only way to make sense of what we are seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The World Health Organisation said Wednesday there are six indications of whether countries have got measures right when easing quarantines. They include the ability to detect, isolate and care for cases, as well as protective measures in workplaces. But even if all the criteria on its list are met, there are no guarantees of success.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s \u201cno time for celebration, but time for preparation,\u201d WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said Thursday. \u201cWe have seen that the strongest health systems can be overwhelmed in a couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Regulations will be reviewed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Noting the challenges and frustrations experienced by the public and businesses due to a lack of clarity in some of the Level 4 regulations, Cabinet committed that regulations would be reviewed to provide the necessary clarity and enable improved compliance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCabinet further noted variations in infection rates between different metropolitan and district municipalities. It is this differentiation that informed Cabinet to embark on a differentiated level approach as a response to Covid-19,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has outlined how South Africa\u2019s new district-based lockdown will work.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in an interview with <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Si3ysOEu3p4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eNCA<\/a><\/strong>, Mkhize said that the government has tracked the rate of infection at a per-population basis, with a number of metropolitan areas highlighted as areas of concern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously the Cape Town area has shown us a feature which is not seen in other parts (of the country) and that is what we call\u00a0 cluster outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is where people in an area explode the numbers. That tells us that there is a new trend we must watch out for and we are all concerned about all the metros.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When looking at specific areas that are \u2018hotspots\u2019, Mkhize said that there are around eight or nine areas in the country which are a cause for concern.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that these are also largely the areas with high economic activity.<\/p>\n<p>The areas specifically mentioned by Mkhize include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Johannesburg;<\/li>\n<li>Tshwane;<\/li>\n<li>Ekurhuleni;<\/li>\n<li>Cape Town;<\/li>\n<li>The Garden Route;<\/li>\n<li>Nelson Mandela Bay;<\/li>\n<li>Durban (eThekwini);<\/li>\n<li>KwaDukuza.<\/li>\n<li>Mangaung (Bloemfontein)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mkhize said that government plans to monitor all of the above areas, and cannot allow the relaxation of restrictions in these districts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will need to bring in a new strategy wherein each of the districts or metros are sub-divided into clusters of wards where we will station a multi-disciplinary team of experts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that each of these districts will be awarded an individual lockdown level based on the reported number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents. These levels will then be reviewed by the government every two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDepending on the average active cases per 100,000 people, districts will be individually assigned levels of lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus,\u201d Mkhize said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/398159\/ramaphosa-lockdown-apology-shows-he-is-not-truly-in-charge-analyst\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ramaphosa lockdown apology shows he is not truly in charge: analyst<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 13,524 confirmed cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":390209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-398535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398535"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398601,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398535\/revisions\/398601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}