Confirmed: Gauteng officially hit by the third wave, says Premier Makhura
Well, it seems another Covid 19 variant has hit South Africa. And another lockdown seems to be looming. Gauteng Premier David Makhura has announced that the third wave of Covid-19 has hit the Gauteng province. Well, it seems as if the past few weeks Covid seems to have been taking a toll as compared before.
For the past two days, the province has been recording over 1 000 positive cases. The Emfuleni region in the Vaal has seen a spike in the number of new Covid-19 cases during the last three weeks.
Makhura made the announcement yesterday that there was a spike in the number of cases. Well, he said the province was in the grip of a Covid-19 third wave.
“Having seen over 1000 cases a day we cannot afford to close down the province’s economy but definitely we want to see an increase in restrictions,” said Makhura.
He was speaking during the official opening of a refurbished mining hospital in Carletonville, west of Johannesburg.
On Thursday, the government reported that Covid-19 cases had increased by 3, 221 in the last 24 hours, heightening fears of the dreaded third wave.
Confirmed: Gauteng officially hit by the third wave, says Premier Makhura
In a statement, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said the national tally of confirmed cases to date now stood at 1,605,252, with 29,362 of them still active.
South Africa’s Covid-19-related death toll had risen to 55 012 with 44 new fatalities, he added. Nineteen of the deaths were in the Free State province, 13 in Gauteng, five in the Western Cape, three in KwaZulu-Natal and two each in the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape.
“The number of tests conducted to date is 11,010,999. Of these 42,073 tests were conducted since the last report. The cumulative recoveries now stand at 1,520,878, representing a recovery rate of 94.7 percent,” Mkhize said.
However, it was recently reported that You can now use WhatsApp to register for the Covid-19 vaccine. South Africans over the age of 60 and healthcare workers can now register for a Covid-19 vaccine through WhatsApp or a USSD code at no cost. As the second phase of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout is expected to kick off next Monday(17 May), the service is only open for people over the age of 60 as well as healthcare workers which have not been vaccinated through the Sisonke protocol.
The process is similar to the Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) Self Registration Portal which was set up as a website by the government.
After providing your ID and medical aid number, users will be asked to read the EVDS privacy policy and accept it. They will then be required to input their personal identification data and register for a booking.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said officials were ready to give the registered elderly their jabs and the second phase of the vaccine rollout program will go ahead as planned.