South Africa health minister warns country might witness Covid-19 resurgence
Zweli Mkhize has warned against complacency over South Africa's Covid-19 situation, as the country could get hit with a second wave of the infection.
South Africa Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has warned that the country might witness a Covid-19 resurgence after moving to lockdown level 1, calling on people not to feel complacent and disregard precautionary measures as South Africa is not totally on the safe side yet.
Mkhize said that the country is ‘not out of the woods’ and is still reporting around 10,000 new cases per week, pointing out that these figures might not be completely accurate, and the actual number could be much higher.
“Before we get the vaccine, we can’t rest," Mkhize said. "So South Africans need to know that level 1 [does not mean] that everything is over. [Instead] level 1 is aimed at rebuilding our economy".
The minister also stressed that people can't go back to their normal lives with the same norms and traditions, highlighting that life post-Covid-19 has to be different than it used to be prior to the pandemic “We are now in a post-Covid world and we have to take precautions. This Covid can still resurge and therefore we must not lose the message and be complacent. We still have to continue the fight, therefore the containment measures still remain in place," Mkhize added.
South Africa reported 1,555 new Covid-19 infections on Sunday, taking its case tally up to 661,211 since the start of the pandemic, while fatalities in the country have reached 15,953. The African country currently has 55,187 active cases.