Don’t be lulled into a false sense of hope that summer will see the end of Covid-19, Professor Glenda Gray said.
Cape Town – With the kick-starting of economies and resumption of services disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries are seeing a resurgence of infections.
South Africa Medical Research Council president Professor Glenda Gray said community transmissions will continue to take place because there is no vaccine.
“In Europe, a second wave occurred in the summer months because people started to become more mobile, didn’t use non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and therefore exposed a lot more people as they moved about.”
Gray said South Africans are at risk of a second wave if community transmissions were not managed.
In the Northern Cape, the Minister of Health announced an additional 131 people testing positive for Covid-19 on Monday, bringing the cumulative total to 15 541 people.
According to the daily press release, there are three people to be reallocated to other provinces. The number of recoveries currently stands at 11 541 which translates to a recovery rate of 77%.
The head of the Centre of HIV and STIs at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), Adrian Puren, said that globally “we have not seen the complete suppression of the virus following the peak but a continuous transmission, albeit at a lower level through the seasons”.
“We will likely see this in South Africa as we head into summer. The reasons for these resurgences, spikes, clusters are likely the result of how the risk-adjustment strategies are implemented and how the societies adapt to them.”
Cape Argus
