{"id":514988,"date":"2021-08-23T09:17:58","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T07:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=514988"},"modified":"2021-08-23T09:17:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T07:17:58","slug":"its-time-for-south-africa-to-look-at-localised-and-provincial-lockdowns-economists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/514988\/its-time-for-south-africa-to-look-at-localised-and-provincial-lockdowns-economists\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s time for South Africa to look at localised and provincial lockdowns: economists"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s adjusted level 3 lockdown is expected to continue into September, as health authorities grapple with an ongoing third wave of Covid-19 infections.<\/p>\n

The long tail of the third wave emphasises the necessity of higher vaccination rates, the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) said in a research note on Monday (23 August).<\/p>\n

While hospitalisation admissions declined last week, new cases are still rising, largely driven by KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. The test-positivity rate also remains high.<\/p>\n

In response to this long tail, cabinet announced<\/a> <\/strong>that South Africa would remain on risk-adjusted alert level 3 of the national lockdown for at least two weeks.<\/p>\n

“With differing trajectories between provinces likely to remain a feature, it might be more sensible to start looking at different lockdown regulations between provinces\/regions,” the BER said.<\/p>\n

“While this comes with practical implementation challenges, this would boost activity in areas with relatively low(er) case numbers.”<\/p>\n

In June 2021, the government announced Gauteng-specific<\/a> <\/strong>lockdown restrictions, prohibiting leisure travel to and from the province as part of the country’s move to a level 4 lockdown.<\/p>\n

However, it has otherwise been hesitant to introduce more localised restrictions.<\/p>\n

Third-wave still ongoing<\/strong><\/p>\n

While health experts and government officials say South Africa has passed the peak of its third wave of Covid-19 infections, a recent spike in cases has caused alarm.<\/p>\n

Speaking this week, newly-appointed health minister Dr Joe Phaahla said that as the third wave is still ongoing, South Africans should not expect a relaxation in restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still far from where we can say the third wave is out. As the department, we will be in no way recommend a relaxation of the restriction at this stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said that the pressure on hospitals should ease if the average number of cases falls below 10,000 a day with a positivity rate of around 10% in the next week or two.<\/p>\n

However, he said that the Covid-19 numbers don\u2019t support the relaxation of restrictions as yet.<\/p>\n

A hopeful boost\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

With no end to lockdown restrictions in sight, it is hoped that a major boost in Covid-19 vaccinations will help protect more people and relieve some of the strain on the healthcare sector.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the government announced it would open up Covid vaccinations for all adults from Friday.<\/p>\n

This makes another 17 million people eligible to register and receive vaccinations, eleven days before the initial set date of 1 September, the BER said.<\/p>\n

“Initial reports of people in the 18-34 category turning out in high numbers were encouraging \u2013 for example, Saturday and Sunday\u2019s respective total number of inoculations were more than double that of the previous weekend.<\/p>\n

“Furthermore, a pilot project in three provinces aimed to bring (mobile) vaccination facilities into communities, as well as the arrangement of transport for people to mass vaccination sites rather than people having to travel to centres independently, should also help to ramp up the daily vaccination rate, which has slowed of late.”<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, South Africa\u2019s biggest challenge to meeting a target of vaccinating two-thirds of the adult population against Covid-19 has shifted from a shortage of supply to a lack of demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are sitting in a situation where we don\u2019t have a vaccine constraint, at least for the next two months,\u201d said Nicholas Crisp, deputy director-general in the department of health. \u201cNow we need vaccine demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Mounting evidence that delta variant is winning \u2013 case for boosters is building<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s adjusted level 3 lockdown is set to continue into September, as health authorities grapple with an ongoing third wave of Covid-19 infections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":398917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14829,26],"class_list":["post-514988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-ber","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514988","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=514988"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515004,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514988\/revisions\/515004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}