SAMRC cautions people with ill health to wear masks after spike in Covid-19 traces in Western Cape wastewater

The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) has advised people who are sickly or at high risk of Covid-19 complications to consider wearing face masks after it noticed an increase in Covid-19 traces in several wastewater treatment plants in the Western Cape.

The council, which has been monitoring more than 80 wastewater treatment plants for the past two years, said in the past week it observed “sharp increases” in concentrations of the non-infectious SARS-CoV-2 RNA, fragments of the virus that cause Covid-19.

The abnormal increase was recorded mostly in treatment plants within Cape Town, De Doorns, Rawsonville and Worcester.

“Over the next few weeks, it may be prudent for those at risk to revert to basic protective measures, such as avoiding or wearing masks in crowded indoor spaces and, when caring for people who are ill, being fastidious about hand hygiene and keeping up to date with Covid-19 vaccinations and booster shots,” said Prof Angela Mathee, a member of the SAMRC wastewater surveillance team.

Such an increase has not been observed in Gauteng, northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and the Free State, which are in the SAMRC programme.

“We will pay close attention to next week’s results to ascertain further changes, should they occur,” said Mathee.

The SAMRC said the spike coincides with an increase in the proportion of positive Covid-19 tests recently reported by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

The Western Cape health department confirmed it has also seen an increase in Covid-19 concentration in the 22 of 24 water treatment plants in Cape Town and all four treatment plants in the Breede Valley.

Department spokesperson Maret Lesch said they had also picked up an increase in diagnosed Covid-19 cases since mid-September, “with daily cases increasing from the lowest value since the pandemic started in early September of about 20-25 cases per day to 40-50 cases per day in the last week”.

“While this is a large relative increase in case numbers, the absolute number of cases remains at some of the lowest levels seen during the pandemic, although this is partly due to substantially reduced testing compared to earlier periods,” she said.

On Thursday the department recorded 23 Covid-19 hospitalisations, three of which were in intensive care units (ICU). This is a slight decrease from the number of hospitalisations last Thursday, when 26 people were hospitalised for Covid-19, with two in ICU.

“It is important to note Covid-19 has not gone away. We have to learn to live with it by continuing to observe safety and protective precautions. Omicron remains the dominant circulating variant. Vaccine coverage continues and booster doses are given to those who are due for it, especially for high-risk individuals,” said Lesch.   

The department encouraged those due for booster shots to visit health centres to enhance their immunity.

Lesch said as part of creating access to Covid-19 inoculation, the department has set up pop-up vaccination sites in its “Vax and relax” drive to push up vaccination numbers.

“The Vaxi Taxi has visited the Hermanus Whale Festival, Stellenbosch University, CPUT (District Six and Mowbray), N1 City Mall and University of Cape Town. We are planning more Vaxi Taxi pop-up sites at malls and higher education institutions over the next three weeks, including Somerset Mall, Blue Route Mall, Canal Walk and Promenade Mall.”

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