This comes after anonymous government sources confirmed to some media houses that Mkhize had issued an SOS to provinces. 

It’s understood the internal communication called for intensive containment measures amid the country’s third wave.

But Mkhize has denied such claims. 

“As much as these figures are worrying, our resurgence dashboard, which was developed by the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium, which is updated thrice a week, still shows that we have not as the country reached a resurgence threshold, though some districts in the country are fast approaching the threshold,” he said in a statement on Wednesday evening. 

The country has seen an increase of more than 12 500 cases in the past 7 days - an increase of 46% compared to the preceding week. 

All provinces showed a positive percentage increase with Northern Cape showing a 68% increase in the last 7 days, followed by Gauteng at 63%, Limpopo at 47%, North West at 42% and Western Cape at 39%. 

The new Covid-19 related fatalities increased by 18,22% in the last 7 days.

Mkhize admitted health officials are keeping a close watch on the situation. 

“As the country, we are on high alert and we know that the main drivers of the new wave will either be the resurgence of new variants and/or the fatigue from adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). 

“To counter these we are working closely with our genomic sequencing team to ensure that we are able to pick up the new variants earlier. For NPIs we are continuously communicating with communities to adhere to NPIs. 

“So we want to assure South Africans that we have not yet hit the third wave, however,we are at risk and we hence need to be on heightened vigilance as a country.” 

Meanwhile, the country’s vaccination drive is expected to enter its second phase next week. 

The Health Department will ramp up its efforts to reach its target of vaccinating a large portion of the country’s population by the end of the year. 

Jacaranda/Nokukhanya N. Mntambo