SA could top 10 000 Covid daily cases this week, warns expert
South Africa could see daily Covid-19 infections topping 10 000 by the end of this week - driven by the new Omicron variant.
This is according to one of the country's leading epidemiologists, Professor Salim Abdool Karim.
"We are going to get more cases quickly. We are already seeing evidence of this.
"We'll see pressure on hospitals within the next two to three weeks, and even if Omicron is not clinically worse and the certainty the anecdotes don't raise any red flags just yet, but we don't know for sure, we are going to see this in all likelihood because of the rapidity of transmissions."
He joined other health experts at a briefing earlier on Monday.
Dr Michelle Groome from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases says the positivity rate has shot up over the last two weeks.
"Just look at this by province, most of this has been driven by case increases in Gauteng, but we have also seen increases in Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga.”
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Meanwhile, for more information on the new variant and how you can protect yourself against it, listen to Darren, Keri and Sky's interview below with world renowned scientist, Professor Tulio De Oliveira.
