SOUTH AFRICA PREPARES HOSPITALS AS COVID CASES SURGE

Mon 06 December 2021:

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that hospitals are preparing for increased admissions as the country enters a fourth COVID-19 wave caused by the Omicron coronavirus strain.

“As the country heads into a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, we are experiencing a rate of infections that we have not seen since the pandemic started,” Ramaphosa said on Monday.

Omicron was discovered in South Africa this month, causing global concern about a fresh wave of infections.

The number of daily COVID-19 cases in South Africa increased last week to more than 16,000 on Friday, up from around 2,300 on Monday.

Ramaphosa said in a weekly newsletter that Omicron appeared to be dominating new cases in most of the country’s nine provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The president stressed that a surge in infections was expected.

“Disease modellers in our country have told us that we would likely experience a fourth wave around this time and that it was almost inevitable that new variants of the virus would emerge,” he said.

As we enter the fourth wave, and as the country gears up for the festive season, the urgent priority is for more people to get vaccinated. Scientific evidence shows that vaccination is the most effective means of preventing the spread of new infections. https://t.co/xTifscW7es pic.twitter.com/fLxMmID1zI

— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) December 6, 2021

He also urged people to get vaccinated and said the country now has sufficient supplies of vaccines.

“Vaccination is essential for our economic recovery because as more people are vaccinated more areas of economic activity will be opened up,” he said.

According to the Our Word in Data website, approximately 25% of the South African population has been completely vaccinated against COVID-19, whereas 4.7 percent has only had a single dose.

According to Ramaphosa, the government will shortly meet the National Coronavirus Command Council to assess the situation of the pandemic and determine whether additional steps are required to keep people safe.

“We are keeping a close eye on the rates of infection and hospitalisation,” Ramaphosa said.

_____________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent