Senior researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr Ridhwaan Suliman, says there has been a 33% increase in daily cases compared to a week ago.
The rising numbers of reported infections is put down to an increase in testing but Suliman says South Africans are fuelling the spread by not following safety protocols.
The number of infections recorded per day has breached the 20 000 mark for the past five days.
#COVID19 Statistics in SA as at 10 January .
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— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) January 10, 2021
The COVID-19 related death toll has been between 390 and 600 recorded each day for the same period.
Suliman outlines various reasons for the increase.
“The number of cases is strongly influenced by the number of tests and there has been a marked or significant increase in the number of tests that are being processed. Also because of the nature of the virus and the incubation period, we are seeing new cases for events that have happened 10 to 14 days prior. So what we [are] seeing is the effects of people’s gatherings and movement over the Christmas to New Year and festive period in general.”
A look at South Africa’s COVID-19 pattern amid the second wave spread with Dr Ridhwaan Suliman:
New variant mutation
In November, scientists expressed concern over the rapid manner in which the new variant of the coronavirus transfers among people, saying the South African variant is mutating at an alarming rate.
Explainer on what is the new COVID-19 variant:
