Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Twitter that South Africa now has 2722 confirmed cases of COVID-10, the death toll is now 27 the Miniister said.
Professor Salim Abdool Karim says the world now has a clearer understanding of the origin of the virus and its early trajectory. We now know that the first cases occurred in November last year.
The first case was reported in Wuhan, China, on December 9 last year. The initial theory was that it broke out in the seafood market there. Four months ago, we did not know any of the viruses and currently, there are more than 1.8 million cases.
If there are about 100 cases of the virus in a country, it spreads very quickly. If it reaches that level and people become clinically ill, those people should receive medical care and overwhelm it health system.
If you look at a disease like AIDS, you see the first symptoms after 7 years. The first coronavirus symptoms are seen after 7 days.
If you look at the number of new cases, it becomes clearer. We were, like any other country, on a fast-growing trajectory, until the beginning subsided. We are now on an average of 60 cases a day the Professor said.
The Professor made the following statements:
Why is SA not on the expected pandemic trajectory?
I chose to compare the country with Britain because we had the same number of cases in the first two weeks. On March 26, our line suddenly no longer showed the same upward trajectory as Britain.
So what happened? As the numbers decreased and became stable, the line began to level off.
If we look at the South African line, there is a place where it increases sharply and then begins to decline again. If we compare it with America, China, Italy, etc. nor has one country experienced the change we experienced.
If our pandemic is compared to that of South Korea, Japan and Singapore, there is also a difference.
Is it because we test too little?
Is it because we do most private sector tests and don’t see what the disease is doing in our poorer areas? Or is the decline real?
The professor said, looking at the trend in SA, we see the country’s upward curve changed on March 26. There was a decrease in numbers. We then reached a plateau.
Aren’t we testing poorer communities? The public sector mostly tests poorer communities. At the time we experienced the plateau on our trajectory, is the time when the public sector began to test more and more people. Therefore, it is also unlikely that the situation in SA is due to not doing enough tests.
However, we still need to do many more tests the Professor said.
