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It has been a harrowing few weeks in South Africa, with confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the rise and no sign of slowing down.

Which is why Dr Zweli Mkhize’s latest update, delivered during a briefing on Monday, came with a welcome bit of good news.

It should be firmly noted that a decline in cases is not an invitation to relax PPE measures and physical distancing – a point which Mkhize was careful to emphasise – but it looks like the second wave may have peaked.

Here he is via TimesLIVE:

“When we look at our records at this point, we can see that we are, possibly, beginning to see an inflection of the curve and we are also seeing that the numbers [of infections] may be starting to decline. But it is too early to celebrate,” he said.

He attributes the slight decline to measures that worked during the first wave of infections, particularly wearing masks, physical distancing, and sanitising.

“This week has seen some promising signs of decline in transmission. Yesterday [Sunday] we noted a 23% decrease in new cases nationally compared to seven days prior.”

The graph below was presented on Monday during the briefing and shows a seven-day moving average of new cases:

Image: TimesLIVE

For the first time since December, the country has recorded fewer than 10 000 cases in a 24-hour period.

The health minister acknowledged that the current lockdown measures are “frustrating”, but said that they are working.

“We must thank South Africans for adhering to the regulations, difficult and frustrating as it may be. Every sacrifice made has saved lives and we appreciate the patriotism South Africans are displaying to protect the sanctity of life,” he said.

We’ve also been hearing about a new variant of the virus (501Y.V2) doing the rounds, but epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim says, per EWN, that while the new variant spreads more rapidly, it isn’t more severe than the initial strain of COVID-19.

“It’s left to be seen whether it will end faster, but certainly it has spread much faster. In this study undertaken by colleagues at a London school, they found that the 501Y.V2 variant is 50% more transmissible than the previous variants we have in South Africa.”

Image: Prof Salim Abdool Karim, Trevor Samson

…“The current data indicates that the virus is not causing more severe disease, but it is putting huge pressure on hospitals and we may see in due course an increase that’s just from the lack of hospital beds and the pressure on the healthcare system, but certainly at this stage we are not seeing an increase in mortality rates.”

The pressure placed on the healthcare system has been extreme over the course of the pandemic, with GroundUp reporting that paramedics are responding to more potential COVID-19 call-outs than trauma cases.

A Cape Town paramedic speaking under the pseudonym ‘Claire’ said that:

“Everyone we transport nowadays is a PUI [person under investigation]; we have to assume they have Covid-19,” says Claire as she wipes down the interior of the ambulance. It’s just after 9pm, and she and her colleague Mike [also a pseudonym] have just delivered an elderly woman to the emergency room of a Cape Town private hospital. “Each shift we make six or seven calls, and recently 90% of these are suspected Covid-19 cases.”

The ambulance crew can spend up to an hour sanitising their vehicles between call-outs.

“This virus has totally changed the way that we work,” says Claire, “We can’t just rush in like we used to. Now, we have to evaluate the situation carefully, and put on all of our PPE [personal protective equipment] before we can attend to a patient.”

They’ve also noticed some strange symptoms in potential COVID-19 patients.

Before the pandemic, says Claire, “when we would come across a patient with blood oxygen saturation stats at 58, we’d know that they’d be dead within five minutes without urgent care” says Claire.

…”But with the spread of Covid-19, the paramedics regularly encounter ‘happy hypoxics’ who seem alert and will chat away happily while technically starved of oxygen.”

For more on how ambulances are functioning during the pandemic, head here.

At the time of writing, according to Worldometer,1 346 936 cases of the virus have been reported since the first recorded case in South Africa, with 37 449 deaths.

There are currently 192 035 reported active cases in South Africa.

[sources:timeslive&ewn&groundup]