Cape Argus E-dition

Third wave on the way, but there’s time to lessen impact

RUDOLF NKGADIMA rudolph.nkgadima@africannewsagency.com

THE arrival of a third wave in South Africa is not a question of “if” but rather “when”, according to leading South African scientists and health professionals.

For the past two weeks, positive Covid-19 infections hovered at around the 2000 mark. Using data metrics to track the daily Covid-19 cases, hospitalisation and deaths, scientists say they expect the third wave to arrive with the start of winter this June.

An uptick in Covid-19 cases in a number of provinces including Gauteng, Northern Cape, and North West have been flagged by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and have been placed “under observation”. The Free State Health Department has already announced the province is officially experiencing a third wave.

According to NICD acting executive director Professor Adrian Puren, predictive modelling also shows a rise in cases in Gauteng, which could be a sign of a third wave.

What is a third wave?

A third wave would be defined by the number of new cases over a seven-day period (moving average) reaching 30% of the peak moving average of the previous wave.

Upswings would be a sustained increase of 10% over a seven-day period where the number of cases are more than 30 new cases per week per 100 000 population. This would apply to some sub-districts in South Africa.

In the past week, cases rose by a massive 48% – 1800 a day. The positivity rate has also risen steeply to 6.7% from 5.1% a week ago; that’s a 30% rise this week compared with 10% increases in weeks past, while active cases are up by 16%.

Since the first case was recorded in March 2020, South Africa has experienced two waves of Covid-19 infections, the second deadlier than the first. Between October 2020 and February 2021, 17% more people were infected than in the first eight months of the epidemic, and more people died, 26000 in total.

Are we ready for a third wave?

According to a report compiled by Doctors Without Borders, SA hospitals that were overwhelmed during the second wave must be better prepared and their needs supported to avert more deaths and struggles to ensure adequate care to thousands of Covid19 patients. South African Medical Association chairperson Dr Angelique

Coetzee said so far they had not seen a lot of preparation to make sure there are enough ICU beds and oxygen.

“Hopefully there is some sort of planning happening in the background, especially in the public hospital side, but if this is not happening and we get a severe third wave, we are going to struggle getting patients through the severe form of Covid-19. We need to move as quickly as possible to vaccinate people. Whether that is possible we are not sure.”

Earlier this week, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told the public there was no need for panic as the fundamentals of the public health response (testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine) had not changed.

“Preventative efforts had been stepped up as government didn’t want to see similar scenes of devastation unfolding in India where the variant of global concern was first detected,” Mkhize said.

However, UKZN’s Professor Mosa Moshabela said the country should prepare to move to alert level 3. “We should prepare to move to alert level 3 with restrictions similar to December 2020 and January 2021 as soon as the country breaches the official metrics for a third wave.

“In December 2020 and January 2021, we faced one of the worst variants in the world, and we succeeded in doing the impossible,” he said. “We unfortunately have to buy time to scale up the vaccine programme without excessive loss of life seen in December 2020 and January 2021. This balance is difficult, but I don’t see how we curb restrictions without high levels of vaccine coverage.”

Should we be scared?

The South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium predicts that the third wave will be 30-50% lower in impact than the second wave, but similar to the first wave.

But if new variants appear, or if the recent cases of the B1617.2 variant (India) and the B117 variant (UK) prove to be “fitter” than the 501Y.V2 variant (South Africa), it could drive a higher peak. However, current evidence points to this being unlikely.

“There’s been a significant amount of infection that’s taken place already which will confer some level of protection against severe disease and death,” said Wits University vaccinology expert, Professor Shabir Madhi.

“A third wave will be less severe than the first and second wave, especially if the virus doesn’t go through further mutations. But the country must remain vigilant,” he said.

Analyst Kuben Nair said although a third wave appeared on the horizon the public still has the power to dull its impact by doing the basics we all know.

“The estimated deaths from the first wave were 40 000 and 90 000 from the second wave. The third wave scenario predicts anything from 8000 to 70000 deaths. The difference between 8 000 and 70 000 is us acting early and adhering to masks, physical distancing and hand washing,” he said.

The Covid death toll in the country now stands at over 54 000 and the cumulative recoveries now stand at more than 1.5million, representing a recovery rate of 95%.

OPINION

en-za

2021-05-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

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