The Gauteng province has officially exited the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with the rest of South Africa’s provinces already having reached their peak and on a steady decline.
This was announced by Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla during the department’s first COVID-19 briefing of the year.
“Of note is that the decline in new infections is not a steep decline as was the incline. So this virus rises steeply but when it goes down. It goes down slowly but at least it’s going down and this is encouraging.
“We must emphasise that the fourth wave is showing unequivocally the protection of vaccination against severe illness and death,” he said.
Key statistics highlighted by the Minister during the briefing include:• A 13.9% reduction in the number of new cases as compared to last year; dropping from 54 191 new cases in 2021 to at least 46 680 this year.• There has been a 4.8% reduction in fatalities related to COVID-19 over the last seven days.• As of Thursday, there was a 27% reduction in new cases compared to the week before.• There has been a 6.3% reduction in hospitalisations over the past week.• The positivity rate has gone down from as much as 30% in December to 14% as of yesterday.
Phaahla warned that although the numbers show a marked difference in the severity of the Omicron variant as compared to the last wave of infections driven by the Delta variant, vulnerable groups still remain at risk with vaccination the key to protection from severe illness.
“Notwithstanding the reduced severity overall, the Omicron variant is still very deadly especially for people of advanced age and also people with comorbidities and … for the unvaccinated,” he said.
