South Africa: No COVID-19 new variant anticipated

Government agency, National Institute for Communicable Diseases believes that easing health measures will not lead to the increase of Covid-19 infections in South Africa as hospitalisations and reported deaths have declined. Professor Cheryl Cohen National Institute for Communicable Diseases Head of Center for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis is confident that the relaxation of health measures will not lead to a new Covid-19 variant.

“The NICD and its partners have ongoing surveillance where we sequence all the COVID variants to identify new variants. It always remains a possibility with Covid-19 that a new variant could emerge but even if a new variant does emerge,the hope is that the high levels of immunity that we already have in our population would mean that this variant shouldn’t cause large waves like we saw in the first waves. “

While health measures such as wearing masks are no longer compulsory in South Africa, Johannesburg based mask manufacturing start-up, Copper Fresh highlights that their revenue and sales has not been impacted. The business manufactures 30 000 masks per day.

“Originally when we got into the business, COVID was the means we got into business. The reason why we invested so much in the business is that we saw the long term effects of the technology. While the copper masks were fantastic in the fight against COVID we saw the long-term gain for hospital workers, for medical staff and those people that are vulnerable.” said Dean Lazarus, CopperFresh Co-Founder

South Africa had recorded the most coronavirus cases and deaths on the African continent with over 3.9 million confirmed infections and more than 100 000 deaths.Three months ago, South Africa and Nigeria eased their covid-19 rules on travelers’ requiring a PCR test.