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South Africa

Phaahla: 27% drop in new #Covid19 cases

───   14:35 Fri, 14 Jan 2022

Phaahla: 27% drop in new #Covid19 cases | News Article
PHOTO: Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash

The number of new Covid-19 cases, deaths, and hospitalisations is declining.

Health Minister Joe Phaahla says they have seen a decrease of about 27-percent in new cases in the past week.


Gauteng is said to have officially exited the fourth wave.

Phaahla held a virtual media briefing on government efforts in the fight against Covid-19 and the vaccine rollout programme on Friday.

South Africa may be ready to transition from treating COVID-19 as a pandemic to an endemic disease. This means the virus will be treated similarly to the flu.

The Health Department is expected to make recommendations on this soon.

"It's not just the Health Department that influences these things, it's not just our advisors and as you quite rightly said there are economic and social and societal issues but I think we are all ready now to move away from what we have been dealing with," Nicholas Crisp, Health DDG said.

"So we remain cautious and we remain very alert about another variant and we watch what goes on with the positive tests around the country and I think it is time that we start moving more into an endemic mode," Crisp said.


eNCA



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