Professor Barry Schoub, a virologist, says the country could see another wave of Covid infections in the coming weeks, however, it will be milder than previous waves.
Professor Barry Schoub, a virologist, says the country could see another wave of Covid infections in the coming weeks, however, this one will be milder than previous waves.
WHILE the country’s Covid-19 recovery rate remains high, experts are predicting another wave of infections towards the end of September.
However, according to Professor Barry Schoub, a virologist, this one will be much milder than the earlier waves.
Speaking to eNCA, Schoub said the country was not out of the woods yet.
“Unfortunately, the virus does mutate. And unfortunately the mutations up to now have shown that they can evade immunity. So there certainly will be another wave … probably by the end of next month going into October. We hope that it’s going to be much milder, as seen in the last wave,” he said.
Shoub said the country needed to up its vaccine rate and that the Health Department should go back to releasing daily Covid figures, despite the decreased rate of infections and deaths.
“It would help if we had accurate figures and it is certainly important to alert the population,” he said.
It was also important for the department to go into communities and encourage people to get vaccinated.
“I think it’s really an educational programme to impress on people that vaccines are safe and effective and are needed. It is a difficult challenge but something that I think needs to be implemented,” he said.
The latest data from the department shows that South Africa has more than 5,000 active Covid cases with 18 new deaths reported.
According to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization, globally, there have been 599,071,265 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 6,467,023 deaths.
