Faizel Patel – 08/03/2021
Professor Alex van den Heever at the Wits School of Governance says South Africa could already be experiencing the third wave of the Coronavirus.
Friday exactly a year ago South Africa announced the first confirmed Coronavirus infection in the country.
Since that day, the country has gone through a second level of infections, caused by a new variant of the virus and latest reports indicate that the country now has to contend with two additional COVID-19 variants.
There is concern the onset of winter and slow rollout of the vaccine programme could contribute to a third COVID-19 surge.
Speaking to Radio Islam on Monday, Van den Heever says the country may already be in the third surge of the Coronavirus.
“If we had to look at the access data information we are slight spikes in about four provinces which is a bit worrying. That information loads deaths, which theoretically come long after the infections are actually being reported accurately to the date where with new infections are being reported with a huge delay. This means our access data information is potentially a forward indicator of what’s going on.”
Van den Heever has urged South Africans not to become complacent with the move to level one lockdown saying the COVID-19 infection rates published in South Africa on a daily basis reflects cases from three weeks ago.
He says we still need to take precautions against the Coronavirus.
“We could be in the middle of a new surge and you wouldn’t know it. When you start to look at alternative indicators which we have to do, we are not out of the woods. We got to be very, very cautious during a period like this particularly when the vaccine programme has not really been rolled out very effectively which is critical to the long-term ending of this pandemic.”
Van den Heever has reminded South Africans that it was not infections that caused the second surge of COVID-19 but rather peoples behaviour, pretending there was no Coronavirus and super spreader events.
Listen to the interview with Professor Alex van den Heever
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