As the country heads into the festive season, there is no cause for concern of an upsurge of Covid cases despite small outbreaks and upticks detected in wastewater in some areas.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, SARS-CoV-2 levels have increased over the past week in some parts of Gauteng (Daspoort in Tshwane and Hartbeesfontein in Ekurhuleni) and the Free State (Sterkwater and Bloemspruit).
However, cases are generally stable or declining across provinces.
By close of Friday, there were 9,617 recorded active cases in the land. The most was in the Western Cape (over 3,000) followed by KZN with 2,500, then Gauteng and the Free State both with more than 1,000.
Shabir Madhi, health sciences dean and professor of vaccinology at Wits University, said: “There is ongoing circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in SA, as well as ongoing evolution within the Omicron lineage of the virus in SA and globally.”
SA is seeing “erratic” outbreak patterns, but “the wastewater surveillance does not generally show a consistent rise in the amount of virus circulating” despite these small upticks in specific locales.
He said though cases of Covid hospitalisation and death continued, “these are low to modest numbers”.
The SA Medical Research Council excess mortality data indicates “deaths in SA have been within the expected bounds compared with pre-Covid years, and there is no indication that the number of deaths possibly due to Covid are outside what is otherwise expected”.
Madhi said SA is unlikely to struggle with Covid through the upcoming festive season.
“Though impossible to predict what could happen, I don’t think there will be a major surge of infections. If there is a surge of infections, SA is largely protected against severe Covid.”
That’s because more than 90% of the population is thought to have been infected, while about 40% have hybrid immunity (infection and vaccine-induced immunity simultaneously).
The exception would be high-risk individuals who are under-immunised — in other words, they have had fewer than three doses and already have pre-existing factors (like old age or diabetes making them more vulnerable).
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