{"id":428700,"date":"2020-08-26T08:54:14","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T06:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=428700"},"modified":"2020-08-26T08:54:14","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T06:54:14","slug":"a-second-covid-19-wave-re-infections-and-why-the-next-few-days-are-vital-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/428700\/a-second-covid-19-wave-re-infections-and-why-the-next-few-days-are-vital-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"A second Covid-19 wave, re-infections, and why the next few days are vital for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The coming days will be crucial in determining whether a new wave of Covid-19 cases is coming, says the chairperson of the Covid-19 Ministerial Advisory Committee, Professor Salim Abdool Karim.<\/p>\n<p>Karim told <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/covid-19-no-major-spike-expected-under-level-2-says-karim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eNCA<\/a> <\/strong>that there has been a consistent downward trend in cases across all of the provinces, which points to a &#8216;holding pattern&#8217; in the country.<\/p>\n<p>He said there was initial concern that there may be a surge in cases as restrictions are eased &#8211; and while these worries have eased somewhat, he stressed that we are not in the clear yet.<\/p>\n<p>The next few days will be important for determining whether the country could see a second wave or a spike in cases, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right now I&#8217;m not yet saying that we&#8217;re in the clear because we need to have about ten days after we have eased our restrictions. When we look at the data in the next few days, we&#8217;ll get a sense of whether the easing of the restrictions have lead to an uptick in the number of cases.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have to just ensure that we don&#8217;t give the virus a chance to break out again and spread wildly under the current situation,&#8221; Karim said.<\/p>\n<p>Global Covid-19\u00a0infections have hit 23.7 million confirmed, with the death toll reaching 814,000.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1298350041929842688\/photo\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South Africa<\/a><\/strong>, there have been 1,567 new cases, taking the total reported to 613,017. Deaths have reached 13,308 (an increase of 149), while recoveries have climbed to 520,381, leaving the country with a balance of 79,328 active cases.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nShMzQ9gDuA\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Re-infection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Karim said that there has been a &#8216;clear cut&#8217; case of re-infection in Hong Kong where a man reported having the coronavirus nearly five months after first being treated for it.<\/p>\n<p>In this instance, a man was instituted to hospital in Hong Kong with one strain of the virus, and then 142 days later was found to be positive with a separate &#8216;European strain&#8217; after travelling from Spain.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He had two different strains of the virus, that&#8217;s why we are quite confident it is case of re-infection. Now what we don&#8217;t know yet is whether this happening much more commonly and we just don&#8217;t know about it,&#8221; Karim said.<\/p>\n<p>The professor said there is uncertainty as to whether the first infection alters the chemical spectrum of the second infection &#8211; meaning the second infection is much more mild. &#8220;There may be serious repercussions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This could mean that herd immunity is not a practical prospect and it could also mean that the country has to take continual protection and that everyone remains at high-risk.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The most substantial implication is that vaccines try to mimic natural immunity. If natural immunity does not protect for more than a few months, then a vaccine may also only protect for a few months and require repeated doses,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/428572\/updated-level-2-lockdown-rules-for-south-africa-including-weddings-home-affairs-services-and-flights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Updated level 2 lockdown rules for South Africa \u2013 including weddings, home affairs services and flights<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The coming days will be crucial in determining whether a new wave of Covid-19 cases is coming, says the chairperson of the Covid-19 Ministerial Advisory Committee, Professor Salim Abdool Karim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":428616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-428700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428700","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=428700"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428720,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428700\/revisions\/428720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}