South Africa’s coronavirus variant drives holiday surge of cases

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s normally joyful and lively Christmas celebrations have been dampened by the spike in new cases and deaths driven by the country’s variant of COVID-19.

A record number of 14,305 news cases have been confirmed in the past 24 hours, and with no sign of South Africa reaching a peak, threatening the country’s health systems, experts said.

South Africa has a cumulative total of 968,563 confirmed cases, including 25,983 deaths, by far the most cases in all of Africa.

Africa’s 54 countries, representing 1.3 billion people, have together reported more than 2.59 million cases, including more than 61,000 deaths, according to figures released Friday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

South Africa’s 7-day rolling average of daily new cases has more than doubled in the past two weeks from 8.65 new cases per 100,000 people on December 10 to 18.25 new cases per 100,000 people on December 24.

The South African variant, 501.V2, is more infectious than the original COVID-19 virus and is dominant in the country.

To combat the resurgence of the disease, South Africa has imposed measures including closing many large public beaches, requiring masks in public areas, restricting sales of alcohol to four days a week, and enforcing a night time curfew from 11:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m.

However, the quickening pace of the spread of the disease is bringing experts to urge stricter measures.

“We do need to think of additional restrictions so that it’s clear to people the seriousness of the current situation,” infectious diseases expert Dr Richard Lessells told The Associated Press. “Because already many hospitals in many parts of the country are extremely stretched.”

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, in a Christmas message to the country on Friday, urged all South Africans to take preventive measures to slow the spread of the virus. Mkhize also issued a message on Christmas Eve in which he rejected a suggestion by Britain’s health minister that South Africa’s variant had contributed to Britain’s variant.

Mkhize said that statements by Britain’s Secretary for Health, Matt Hancock, had created a perception that the variant in South Africa has been a major factor in the second wave in UK.

“This is not correct. There is evidence that the UK variant developed earlier than the South African variant,” Mkhize said.

There is no evidence to suggest the South African variant is more transmissible, causes more severe disease or increased mortality than Britain’s variant or any other variant that has been sequenced in the world, said Mkhize.

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