Kamogelo Olaitan
The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on South Africans to get themselves vaccinated as the country enters the fifth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than 8,500 new cases were recorded on Thursday followed by 5,486 new cases on Sunday, with 43 hospital admissions on the same day.
The National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD) recorded a 31.1% positivity rate of those tested. This is only 3.8% short of December’s rate of 34.9%.
Speaking to City Press, the WHO’s Dr Kaluwa said scientists predicted this would happen around this time.
He said the slow vaccination rate in South Africa was concerning, and different strategies would be required to encourage citizens to vaccinate.
“We still have a way to go before we reach the peak of the delta variant when hundreds of people died every day and hospital admissions reached an average of 16,000 per day. The positivity rate indicates how fast the disease is spreading through the community. This is a vital indicator since many cases go undetected,” Dr Kaluwa said.
On Saturday, South Africa’s positivity rate rose above 30% for the first time in almost five months.
In April, South African scientists conducted studies to determine the effectiveness of vaccines on the Omicron sub-variants when they identified two omicron sublineages, BA.4 and BA.5.
NICD Executive Director Professor Adrian Puren said: “It is very difficult. We are trying through different strategies to attract people to vaccinate and trying to convince them that this is more serious than influenza,” said Puren.
Epidemiologist Salim Karim previously said that early signs indicate that the new wave will be less deadly than those which came before it.
“Regarding severity, it is too early to tell for sure but the one tell-tale sign is that excess deaths have not risen sharply,” he said.
“In the past waves, excess deaths rose early, sometimes even before the rise in cases is evident.”
Karim explained that as excess deaths have remained low, albeit with a slight increase, “it is unlikely that BA.4 is leading to more severe disease.”
The recorded number of Covid-19-related deaths now stands at 100,523.
