{"id":591410,"date":"2022-05-30T08:32:18","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T06:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=591410"},"modified":"2022-05-30T08:32:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T06:32:18","slug":"good-news-for-covid-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/591410\/good-news-for-covid-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for Covid in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa seems to have passed the peak of the fifth wave of Covid-19 infections, with data showing that infections were far more muted than previous waves, say economists at the Bureau for Economic Research (BER).<\/em><\/p>\n

As a result, and also because of high natural immunity and slowly rising rates of vaccination, hospitalisations and deaths were also more subdued, the group said in a research note on Monday (30 May).<\/p>\n

“This is in line with our baseline view that future waves should be much less severe than especially the Delta wave in mid-2021,” it said.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health also confirmed <\/a><\/strong>this week that 50% of South African adults are now vaccinated. While this is a key landmark for the country,\u00a0 it is still well below the original two-thirds target that was expected by December 2021.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Private hospital group Mediclinic is bullish<\/a> <\/strong>that the worst of the Covid pandemic is largely behind the country, with normal hospital activity expected to resume in South Africa over the coming year.<\/p>\n

Presenting its annual results on Wednesday (25 May), the group noted that based on the most recent trends and expectations, Covid-19-related cases are expected to recede further in the coming months, leading to an increase in more normalised client activity and fewer direct Covid-19-related costs.<\/p>\n

Medclinic\u2019s prognosis follows a similar assessment made by hospital group Netcare in its\u00a0results presentation<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0this week.\u00a0 The signs are positive that South Africa has passed the worst of the Covid pandemic, the group said in its interim results report on Monday (23 May).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new Omicron sub-variants (BA.4 and BA.5) that have recently emerged are currently driving an increase in Covid-19 positive cases in South Africa. While the impact of these sub-variants appears to be mild thus far, reflected in relatively low hospitalisation and lower mortality, it may weigh on patient sentiment and could affect activity in the short term.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, the possibility of further waves of Covid-19 does exist. However, in the absence of a new highly transmissible and virulent variant of the virus, and against the background of increasing levels of immunity from natural infection and vaccination, there may be a reduction in the severity of such potential waves should the serial mutation of the Omicron variant continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Top business leaders are looking at a four-day work week \u2013 and permanent hybrid working<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa seems to have passed the peak of the fifth wave of Covid-19 infections, with data showing that infections were far more muted than previous waves, say economists at the Bureau for Economic Research (BER).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":564972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-591410","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\/591410","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=591410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591420,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591410\/revisions\/591420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}