The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concern following a six percent increase in COVID-19 cases in South Africa in the past seven days, despite a two percent decrease in the number of infections on the African continent.
South Africa is one of 16 countries that have shown an increase.
South African authorities warned that the country could see a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 if all the protocols are not observed as the country relaxes lockdown regulations.
Non-compliance with social distancing, sanitising and some people removing their masks in public spaces have been reported.
When the country moved to alert level one of the national lockdown, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize warned against complacency, saying South Africans should take all precautionary measures to avoid a resurgence of coronavirus cases in the country.
Mkhize said, “We are on our way towards normality, except the normality is going to be very different now because we won’t be able to move from our day-to-day lives. The use of masks, sanitising, distancing are still going to be part of our lives because we haven’t gone out of the problem yet, we still have the virus amongst us and the real question is for us to always be alert and not see a resurgence like we have in other countries.”
Some of the restrictions that have been lifted under lockdown level one:
The Chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Committee Professor Salim Abdool Karim said the new normal, which includes following all the health protocols, will be a way of life for some time to come.
Karim says, “We are not going to get back to our old normal, so we would have to figure out what the new normal is because that is what we are going to have in place for a very long time until we have a vaccine. And part of that new normal will be getting on with much of what we do normally but taking into account our prevention strategies and with certain restrictions.”
Although the active coronavirus cases have been decreasing, the number of COVID-19 related deaths have been increasing on a daily basis. However, despite the high number of recoveries, some of those who have recovered, say it is better to prevent contracting the virus as they are still battling devastating side effects.
WHO says South Africa has recorded an increase of 6% in cases in the past seven days
Latest COVID-19 stats for SA:
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Lockdown levels:
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