Coronavirus disease COVID-19 infection medical illustration. China pathogen respiratory influenza covid virus cells. New official name for Coronavirus disease named COVID-19. 3D

-Naadiya Adams

South Africa has seen an alarming spike in covid-19 infections that has hospitals bursting at the seams, but the situation is worse than expected particularly in Gauteng which is currently the epicentre of the pandemic.

Calls for stricter lockdown regulations have plagued the National Covid-19 Command Council but the Department of Health said in a briefing on Friday morning that level 5 lockdown at this point is not the solution.

Radio Islam spoke with the CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, Professor Glenda Gray, to shed some light on the matter.

According to Gray, it’s not easy to predict the behaviour of the waves and with the high numbers that were seen in the second wave, many believed the population would begin developing some kind of immunity but that was not the case, she says while it is difficult to predict, we should never be unprepared.

“Human behaviour together with cold weather and possibly fluctuating variants could propagate a wave or a surge,” says Gray.

However human behaviour and cold weather alone could not be the driving force behind Gauteng’s severe surge, Prof Gray believes it could be due to the province being highly populated while its also rather small compared to other provinces.

“Its small with quite a lot of overcrowding and possibly the waning immunity from the previous waves made it the first province to explode…its hard predict because there’s lots of factors that goes into play and certainly the virus circulates in areas where there’s waning immunity because of previous exposure.”

Gray also emphasised the winter months play a big part in the surge as well as super spreader events along with the newly circulating variants. Hence the importance of ensuring no new variants emerge, however new variants could be the reason for the uptick in cases in Gauteng and the NICD is currently testing for new variants in the province.

Many people across the province have called for a harder lockdown, however some say its too late while others say it is not the answer, Prof Gray says various measures have shown efficacy in curbing the virus fast and need to be implemented.

“We do need to curb community transmission, we do need to get a handle and control of the pandemic, one of the easiest and quickest ways is we need to free up beds and we always find by limiting alcohol sales and by making sure people aren’t drinking too much you can keep beds open. So the job of the health system now is to keep beds open and in South Africa what has worked is curbing alcohol usage.”

Gray says the community spread can only be curbed by the adherence to Covid protocols with specific focus on household and transport distancing.

Hopes are that the infection will settle within two or three weeks from the peak says Gray, its difficult to predict when the peak will happen but only once cases begin to go down can experts declare that the peak has passed.