{"id":582732,"date":"2022-05-04T07:30:14","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T05:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=582732"},"modified":"2022-05-04T07:30:14","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T05:30:14","slug":"what-to-expect-from-the-next-covid-wave-and-lockdown-restrictions-absa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/582732\/what-to-expect-from-the-next-covid-wave-and-lockdown-restrictions-absa\/","title":{"rendered":"What to expect from the next Covid wave and lockdown restrictions: Absa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the Covid-19 risk has diminished in South Africa, it has not disappeared, and a resurgence of cases in recent weeks could weigh on the economy this year, say economists at Absa bank.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;New Covid-19 cases are again on the rise, with the positive test ratio reaching 21% on 27 April, the highest level since early January,&#8221; the bank said in a research note on Tuesday (3 May).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While we believe the government will not look to tighten lockdown restrictions, a surge in Covid-19 cases could still moderately weigh on economic activity via the confidence channel and delay the recovery in tourism-related industries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Internationally, the Russo-Ukrainian war and China\u2019s \u2018zero-Covid\u2019 lockdowns will likely dampen global growth momentum and exacerbate supply chain pressures on growth domestically.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Absa&#8217;s baseline scenario assumes there will be bouts of Covid-19 but with no material retightening of lockdown restrictions;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Its upside scenario assumes any further waves of Covid-19 only have a marginal impact on the country;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Its downside scenario forecasts that further waves will lead to the reintroduction of social distancing lockdowns, but with significantly less economic impact than in 2020.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>South Africa reported 3,785 new cases on Tuesday (3 May), representing a 17.6% positivity rate after 21,518 tests were conducted in the previous 24 hours. Most new cases reported are from Gauteng (45%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (28%).<\/p>\n<p>An increase of 68 hospital admissions was reported in the past 24 hours, with 2,232 currently admitted across public and private healthcare clinics.<\/p>\n<p>In a media briefing on Friday (29 April), health minister Joe Phaahla said the government would likely need a further week of data to confirm the start of the fifth wave officially and that the recent uptick in cases is not anomalous.<\/p>\n<p>Previous forecasts had pointed to a fifth Covid wave beginning in South Africa from mid-May.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What is also uncertain from our scientists is (that) we have always been told that when a new wave comes, it is driven by a new variant and at this stage, we have not been alerted of a definite new variance except changes in the Omicron variant,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> UPDATE: 21,518 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 3,785 new cases, which represents a 17.6% positivity rate. Today <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HealthZA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@HealthZA<\/a> reports 7 deaths; of which 2 occurred in the past 24\u201348 hrs. Total fatalities are 100,377 to date: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cmU0UatFnW\">https:\/\/t.co\/cmU0UatFnW<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AZbWSjy6lx\">pic.twitter.com\/AZbWSjy6lx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NICD (@nicd_sa) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nicd_sa\/status\/1521519971192479751?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/582718\/flysafair-offering-tickets-for-r8\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FlySafair offering tickets for R8<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the Covid-19 risk has clearly diminished in South Africa, it has not disappeared, and a resurgence of cases in recent weeks could weigh on the economy this year, say economists at Absa bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":424944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-582732","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\/582732","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=582732"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":582742,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582732\/revisions\/582742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}