It's not too late to contain Rage COVID-19 outbreak: Prof Karim
An epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist says it's not too late to contain the spread of the matric rage Covid-19 outbreak in Durban.
The festival was held from the 27th of November to last week Friday.
Organisers say they implemented strict health and safety measures after being given the go-ahead to host the parties by local government authorities.
They say the confirmed cases include four staff members.
Professor Salim Abdool Karim is the chairperson of the national Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee.
He says there are at least 92 confirmed infections from the rage.
"KZN most of the cases were caught quite early and if we have a situation where most of those families that had been exposed and most of the individuals have been exposed and are aware of it and have been quarantined we can contain the spread.
"If we let the time go past without instituting quarantine and doing the testing then we find the cases, then it will go to point to no return," he says.
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Karim says these type of events need to be monitored by police.
Karim says while no KZN district has been identified yet, as a Covid hotspot, the Ballito Rage festival could put our province in that situation.
"Rage is now putting the whole of KZN into a high-risk situation for a runaway increase of cases. and so we need to seriously think in terms of how to prevent this from recurring."
Karim says he thinks one of the things that can be done is the municipalities and metros like Durban should consider making organisers of mass gatherings like this register with the police.
"So that the police and law enforcement is fully aware of the event and can check if the rules are being followed but I think if we do that we can avoid this kind of situation from occurring again."
He says KZN's been reporting an upward trend in infections but believes it's a bit early to make a determination as to what these trends all mean but certainly, it is concerning.
"It looks like it could potentially end up with a situation as we could be in the next wave. I have thought that much of this would occur after the holidays when people travel across the country and that might make it worse and might lead us into a situation where we are in a second wave in January," he adds.
