Abdool Karim started his address ominously, saying: “We do not have good news for you.”
He said the virus was “spreading faster than the first wave” and was “probably across most of SA by now”. However, it was not clear whether the second wave had, proportionately, more or fewer deaths.
“In other words, the severity is unclear. We have not seen any red flags, looking at our death information,” he said.
Mkhize said that there was “no reason for panic”, and that the strategies of wearing masks, sanitising and social distancing would be as effective in preventing the spread of the new variants as the originals.
On Thursday night, there were 892,813 confirmed Covid-19 cases countrywide, with more than 9,000 of them in the preceding 24 hours. In the 24 hours before then, SA recorded more than 10,000 new cases, the first time it had done so since August 1.
Also by Thursday night, 24,011 deaths had been recorded across the country — with 184 of them coming in the preceding 24 hours.
by Matthew Savides