SA officially enters third Covid-19 wave

South Africa has entered its third wave of Covid-19 infections, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said on Thursday, as the continent’s worst-hit country registered 9 149 new cases.

The NICD said South Africa had exceeded the national 7-day moving average incidence of 5 959 cases as defined by the ministerial advisory committee (MAC). The MAC advisory reported the latest wave of cases had a 7-day moving average threshold that was 30% of the peak incidence of the previous wave, which reached around 10 000 infections driven by a new variant.

“South Africa technically entered the third wave today,” the NICD said in a statement.

Africa has hit 5 million Covid-19 cases, with the southern Africa region the worst affected, accounting for 37% of total cases, according to a Reuters tally.

South Africa is the worst affected African country, with about 34% of the total cases and about 43% of all recorded deaths as it struggles to ramp up a vaccination drive.