JOHANNESBURG (PA) – The normally cheerful and lively Christmas holidays in South Africa have been diminished by the increase in the number of new cases and deaths caused by the country’s COVID-19 variant.
A record 14,305 news cases have been confirmed in the last 24 hours and with no signs that South Africa will reach a peak, threatening the country’s health systems, experts said.
South Africa has a cumulative total of 968,563 confirmed cases, including 25,983 deaths, by far the largest number in all of Africa. The 54 African countries, representing 1.3 billion people, together reported more than 2.59 million cases, including more than 61,000 deaths, according to figures released Friday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
South Africa’s 7-day average of new daily cases has doubled in the past two weeks, from 8.65 new cases per 100,000 people on December 10 to 18.25 new cases per 100,000 people on December 24.
The South African variant, 501.V2, is more infectious than the original COVID-19 virus and is dominant in the country.
To combat the recurrence of the disease, South Africa has imposed measures, including the closure of many large public beaches, the need for masks in public areas, restricting alcohol sales to four days a week and enforcing a night extinguisher from 11pm 04:00 However, the acceleration of the spread of the disease leads experts to call for stricter measures.
“We need to think about additional restrictions so that the severity of the current situation is clear to people,” Dr. Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert, told the Associated Press. “Because many hospitals in many parts of the country are already extremely large.”
Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize, in a Christmas message to The country on Friday urged all South Africans to take precautionary measures to slow the spread of the virus. Mkhize also issued a message on Christmas Eve in which he rejected a suggestion by the British Minister of Health that the South African version contributed to the British version.
Mkhize said British Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s statements created the perception that the South African variant was a major factor in Britain’s second wave.
“It simply came to our notice then. There is evidence that the British version developed earlier than the South African version, “said Mkhize.
There is no evidence to suggest that the South African variant is more transmissible, causes more severe disease or increases mortality than the UK variant or any other variant that has been sequenced in the world, Mkhize said.
He also said he was against travel bans.
“It is the widely held view of the scientific community that, given current circumstantial evidence, the risks of travel bans may outweigh the benefits and that it may contain variations while supporting international travel,” he said.
“Banning travel between the UK and South Africa is an unfortunate decision,” Mkhize said in a statement. “There is no evidence that the South African version is more pathogenic than the British version to require this step.”
Mkhize mentioned that South Africa is part of a group of “leading countries in the field of genomic surveillance: Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United Kingdom”.
The leader of genomic research in South Africa is Professor Tulio de Oliveira, who leads a team of scientists studying the genomic sequencing of the new variant.
“I will spend Christmas in my lab,” de Oliveira told AP. “We will be working on this research throughout the holiday season.”
Other African countries are also struggling with the recurrence of the disease.
Nigeria has also reported a new variant of the virus and is struggling with the recurrence of the disease. The country reported more than 81,200 cumulative cases on Friday. The 7-day average of new cases per day in Nigeria has risen in the past two weeks from 0.21 new cases per 100,000 people on December 10 to 0.40 new cases per 100,000 people on December 24.