South Africa’s strict measures to reduce the spread of the coronavirus may limit the severity of the pandemic’s next wave, the government official running the national vaccination program said.
Africa’s most-industrialized nation has fully vaccinated about a third of the country’s 40 million adults, and has kept in place prevention measures including a curfew, limits on gathering and mandatory use of masks in public. The percentage of those vaccinated is higher among older citizens.
“If we continue with social distancing, we will still get a fourth wave, but it will be mild,” Nicholas Crisp, the deputy director general of South Africa’s Department of Health, said in an interview, citing mathematical modeling. “It could be a quarter of the first wave -- minimal. People will get infected and get sick and have a lousy Christmas,” but deaths and hospitalizations will be lower, he said.
South Africa’s first wave of infections, in July 2020, was the smallest of the three to strike the country so far, with a daily average of infections at just over 12,000 in the worst week. That compares with about 18,000 in the second and almost 20,000 in the latest surge that just ended.
The country has had the worst confirmed outbreak on the continent, with almost 3 million infections and about 90,000 deaths. A measure of excess deaths -- or deaths exceeding the annual average -- puts likely coronavirus fatalities at almost three times the official figure.
Still, the abandoning of precautionary measures or the emergence of a new variant could change the outlook, Crisp said.
“We are preparing for the worst.”
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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