NICD research suggests BA.2 is nothing to worry about – Photo: Adobe Stock
COVID in the clear: All SA provinces now out of the third wave
Here’s some great news! ALL 9 of our provinces have now exited the COVID third wave. Can we keep the 4th wave away until 2022?
NICD research suggests BA.2 is nothing to worry about – Photo: Adobe Stock
We’ve been stuck in this horrible pandemic for over a year and a half now. But it seems we’ve been given some good news to end the week. According to the man who has been so key in tracking the COVID-19 pandemic across the country, Ridhwaan Suliman, all 9 of our provinces have exited the COVID third wave.
Bye bye third wave: COVID-19 clearing up, for now
The country has already been out of the third wave, from an overall national level, for a little under a month now. But according to Suliman, a senior researcher at the CSIR, the fact that all 9 provinces are out of the third wave, is pretty historic.
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“This is the 1st time in the pandemic we’ve had all 9 provinces out of a wave at the same time.”
CSIR Researcher Ridhwaan Suliman
The state of COVID-19 in SA
After months of reporting thousands of new COVID-19 cases every single day, the country reported just 816 new cases in the last 24 hours. That’s a test positivity rate of just 2.8%. That means that out of the almost 30 000 COVID tests done in the last day, less than 3% came back positive.
But what about our vaccine rollout? So far, the country has fully vaccinated just under 25% of all adults. In total, over 19 million vaccines have been administered. But only 9 million adults are fully vaccinated. The government has admitted that that’s clearly not enough. With the plan still to have 70% of adults fully vaccinated by December, it’s clear we won’t get anywhere close.
This week, the Department of Health also revealed that over 80% of COVID-19 patients in hospital, are unvaccinated. That shows that the vaccine is doing its job. It also shows how the number of people we can get vaccinated before December, will be key in determining just how severe our 4th wave is.
In the last 24 hours, just 55 084 vaccines were administered across the country. You can view detailed national vaccine statistics, as well as a provincial breakdown, here.
