Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize made this revelation on
Friday night, speaking at a briefing alongside top scientists including Prof
Salim Abdool Karim and Prof Tulio de Oliveira.
What was particularly concerning, they said, was that the
new strain appeared to be spreading significantly quicker than the dominant
strains when the coronavirus first started circulating in the country.
Also worrying, Mkhize said, was that there was a shift in
the clinical picture — in that a larger portion of younger people with no
comorbidities were presenting with severe illness.
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 variant 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. Sowetan
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