Renowned epidemiologist, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, says there is the possibility of the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant, saying the public must remain vigilant.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced an end to the National State of Disaster, more than two years after it was first declared in response to the pandemic.
The remaining restrictions include the wearing of face masks in indoor public spaces, travellers entering the country will need to show proof of vaccination or a negative test and the existing regulations on gatherings will continue.
Professor Karim says the public must adhere to the remaining regulations to protect their health.
“Any new variant that comes into being – the next one is likely to be called Pi, which is the next letter in the Greek alphabet after Omicron when it comes along, it is very likely to have the ability to escape immunity. It depends on the extent to which it can escape immunity and if it can do that sufficiently, we will need to go back to many of our public health measures.”
Latest coronavirus stats in SA:
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Professor Karim says South Africa is in a low transmission period.
“I think the time has come. We are in a period of low transmission and we need to be easing restrictions as much as possible during this period, but not to forget we are still living in the period of a pandemic, so we do need some public health measures in order to minimise the impact of future waves. But overall, much of the regulations relating to the more menial things we used to do have been removed. For example, regulations on sanitising, temperature checking, all of those are now gone.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national address on the fight against coronavirus:
