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KZN government blames unrest for the increase in COVID-19 infections

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The KwaZulu-Natal government believes that the recent unrest is to blame for the increase in COVID-19 infections.

KwaZulu-Natal has over 38 500 active cases, surpassing Gauteng which has a little more than 16 600.

However, experts say infections in the province showed an increase before the unrest.

Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane says they are concerned that the province has surpassed Gauteng with over 2000 daily infections.

Simelane says the recent unrests could have contributed to the rising numbers, she added that the province has not yet reached its third wave.

“The issue of clusters and super spreader events are some things that will affect our infections as a province. As you would know in the past two weeks or so we had unrest in the province and we really were not able to determine the extent that those unrests had affected our people.

But outside of the unrest, we have not had any other super spreader events. We think those engagements, those coming together of people at that point, might be the reason why our infection numbers are going up right now. But again it’s an assumption because we don’t have something scientific that actually speaks to that.”

KZN Unrest | Aerial view of looting in KwaZulu-Natal:

However, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Professor Mosa Moshabela says the seven-day average for rate of infections, was already at 1 500 before the unrest.

“In my view, I think that even though we are seeing a spike in KZN it’s not in any way much faster than what it was before the unrest. So what we are basically seeing is a trend that is continuing from what we saw before the unrest.

When we were looking at the trajectory we did not see any acute spike a week or so after these major gatherings. I do think that in KZN we responded pretty well, on the whole, to level 4 lockdown and the spike that was seen I think it’s more as a consequence of having gone from level 4 lockdown to level 3 lockdown.”

Moshabela says the province’s third wave is expected to be much lower than the second or first wave.

“What we are seeing is a question of whether we are going to peak soon or not and that depends really on the extent of social meetings when we look at the numbers on a day-to-day basis.

They are fluctuating and they are not necessarily assuring us that we have peaked and if you peak now it would be much lower than we would have expected compared to the second or first wave.”

The department says more than 1.6 million people have been vaccinated in the province. Simelane says there’s been a drop in the number of people willing to take the vaccine.

“We believed that the investigations that are happening in relation to 28 cases that are being investigated by SAHPRA in relation to cases that are assumed to have passed on because of vaccines, that issue when it got to the community it did a little bit to affect some our community members and as a result, some are reluctant to come and get vaccinated.”

Authorities have urged citizens to continue adhering to COVID-19 regulations. – Reporting by Nonhlakanipho Mangwaza

In the video below the KZN government speaks to SABC News about the increase in COVID-19 numbers:

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