South Africa is heading towards the COVID-19 peak with new COVID-19 infections increasing daily. However, there is no specific indicator of which day and week the country will reach its peak, says Doctor Kerrin Begg, a Public Health Specialist at the University of Cape Town.
Begg says South Africa is testing and diagnosing only a fraction of the COVID-19 infections countrywide.
Millions more have gone undetected and are spreading the virus.
Begg says the peak in COVID-19 cases will only be determined after it has happened.
“The reality is that we will only know when the peak happens after the fact. The peak will come and we will only really be able to say a week or two later that we have plateaued sufficiently, our testing strategy didn’t change during that time. We certainly know that the active cases in the Western Cape are plateauing and so that gives us some hinge that we are starting to head towards the peak now. But the reality is that we have diagnosed very few of the cases that are likely to be present in the country.”
#COVID19 Statistics in SA as at 27 June 2020 pic.twitter.com/1NQOlfywWC
— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) June 27, 2020
As of today, the cumulative number of confirmed #COVID19 cases is 131 800,the total number of deaths is 2 413, the total number of recoveries is 67 094. pic.twitter.com/TgnTH0AKmr
— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) June 27, 2020
In the video below, SA COVID-19 spread patterns are discussed: