While Gauteng continues to record the most Covid-19 cases daily, early indications are that the province may have reached its fourth wave peak.
Health minister Dr Joe Phaahla said during a media briefing on Friday that Gauteng was the first province to enter the fourth wave with the highest number of cases per day, however, there was now a sharp increase in the coastal provinces.
The majority of new cases on Thursday were recorded from Gauteng with 27%, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 23%, and the Western Cape accounted for 19%, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
“Around 7-10 days ago, Gauteng was accounting for 70-80% of new Covid-19 cases per day.
“The country’s positivity rate has risen steeply with an average positivity rate of 31%. Over 24,700 new Covid-19 cases were recorded on Thursday.
“All nine provinces are essentially in the fourth wave due to the Omicron variant. The number of cases in the fourth wave have exceeded the peaks of the third, second and first waves,” said Phaahla.
Head of the division of Public Health Surveillance and Response at the NICD, Dr Michelle Groome, said the increase in case numbers are being driven by the Omicron variant which had rapidly displaced the Delta variant.
“Gauteng was the first province to enter the fourth wave with a rapid increase but quite optimistically we are seeing a rapid decrease in the province over the last couple of days while the other provinces continue to increase,” she said.
Phaahla said that while hospital admissions were increasing they were comparatively lower than previous waves.
"We have seen a 70% rise in hospital admissions. It is a high percentage because we come from a low base at the end of the third wave. There have been just over 7,600 patients admitted in the fourth wave,“ he said.
During the first two weeks of the third wave, between June 17 and 24, 2021, there was an average infection rate of 4 400 new cases per day with 800 hospital admissions 800 per day, representing a 19% hospital admission rate.
In comparison, during the first two weeks of the country’s fourth wave, the average new cases per day were upwards of 20 000, said the health minister, but hospital admissions were below 400 per day. This represented a 1.7% hospital admission rate.
Follow Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla and Deputy Minister of Health Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo briefing on government efforts in the fight against #COVID19 and the national vaccination rollout programme. https://t.co/QPBS2yfD6F
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) December 17, 2021
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