No Third Wave of Covid-19 in South Africa Yet - Health Dept

The Department of Health has said that the country is not yet in the third wave of Covid-19 infections despite noting a rise in cases. This comes after over 1.6 million cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in South Africa. "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," the department's statement read.

Citizens who are over 60 and have registered to receive the vaccine on the government's system will soon receive a message to schedule their appointments as the Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize said they were still on track to start the next phase of vaccinations. Spokesperson Lwazi Manzi added that the first Pfizer vaccines will be administered after May 15, 2021 and that the department was still waiting for an audit of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines to be concluded at the Aspen Pharmacare site.

As of May 13, 2021, over 1,602,031 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed of which 54,968 proved fatal and 1,519,734 resulted in recovery while 430,730 vaccinations have been administered.