Declining infections in South Africa were ‘very promising’, but the experience in other countries showed ‘we do still have the potential to experience a second surge’.
So said the chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19, epidemiologist and infectious diseases specialist Professor Salim Abdool Karim, according to a Health24 report.
Karim was speaking this week in a webinar on the pandemic hosted by the University of the Free State.
Noting the decline in new daily cases from around 12 000 to 13 000 in July to under 6 000 in mid-August (and hospital data showing a decline in admissions in recent days), Karim said there nevetheless remained the potential for a second wave.
‘We are particularly concerned about the risk of a second surge. In fact, if anything really concerns me at this stage, it’s the [possibility of a] second surge and how the epidemic may play out over the next several weeks,’ he was reported as saying.
Sustaining prevention measures as the numbers dropped was vital.
The experience in Germany, the United States and Spain, where numbers dropped but then rapidly increased again, demonstrated the risk of complacency.
‘At this stage, it looks pretty compelling that we’re not going down that road, but one would like to see this get to a lower point,’ he said.
‘So country after country, even after success and claiming elimination, are seeing these second waves. And so, we need to be very careful that this is not a time for complacency. As we go through this epidemic, as we learn to coexist with this virus and aim for containment, we have to go on the basis of planning for the long term.’
Karim added that even if a vaccine became available, ‘it is unlikely that we will be able to vaccinate a substantial part of our population before the end of next year’.
‘So we need to transition from being scared to a situation where we can control our risk. And we know that we influence our risk, and consequently the risk of everyone else around us.’
In other news yesterday, the Western Cape announced that it was closing the Covid-19 field hospital at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) in light of the easing of the pandemic in the province.
The head of the provincial Department of Health, Keith Cloete, said the temporary hospital would be decommissioned on 18 August. The remaining 57 patients were being transferred to the Brackengate facility.
The CTICC facility treated 1 502 people, and discharged 1 440. Eighty-two people died there.
Businesstech reported that SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter warned this week of the hefty cost to the fiscus of sustaining the bans on the sale of alcohol and cigarettes.
The report said Kieswetter told CNBC Africa that the country was already facing a shortfall as a result of the nationwide coronavirus lockdown. He said employment taxes were down by R14.5 billion (around 9%), and corporate income tax by R16 billion (28%).
Tax from alcohol was down by R7 billion; from cigarettes by R3 billion; from VAT by R14.5 billion; and customs duty by R16.7 billion.
He was quoted as saying: ‘If you then add the downstream taxes from those companies you will also add the loss in corporate income tax and employment taxes that gets you to a shortfall of R15 billion.’
By last night, there was still no clarity on whether the government would, as speculation has suggested, ease the lockdown to level 2 and lift the bans on the sale of cigarettes and alcohol, or when President Cyril Ramaphosa would next address the country.
Positive cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 6 275 to a cumulative total of 579 140 (with 461 734 recoveries). Deaths rose by 286 to 11 556.
The highest tally of cases is in Gauteng (197 531), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (103 744), the Western Cape (101 579) and the Eastern Cape (83 372).