Covid-19

South Africa announces new restrictions as cases soar

Published

6 years ago

December 29, 2020

Admin

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced new tougher coronavirus restrictions, a day after South Africa recorded more than one million Covid-19 cases.

People wearing masks walk at a shopping mall as they continue their daily life amid Covid-19 in Cape Town, South Africa on December 27, 2020.

Indoor and outdoor gatherings will be banned, a curfew introduced from 21:00 to 06:00, and alcohol sales prohibited.

Ramaphosa said the country was at an extremely dangerous point in the pandemic and action had to be taken.

Recently authorities confirmed a new, faster-spreading variant of the virus had been detected in South Africa.

Some hospitals and medical centres have reported a huge rise in admissions, putting a heavy strain on resources.

In a televised speech, Ramaphosa said the new 501.V2 variant was now well established in South Africa, and the recent rise in cases was a “cause for great alarm”.

“We have simply let our guard down,” said the president.

He added that the new measures would come into effect at midnight on Monday (22:00 GMT) and last at least until 15 January.

He said gatherings excepts for funerals and a few other limited exceptions would be banned, no-one would be able to leave their homes between 21:00 and 6:00 without a permit, and all shops, bars and other venues would have to close by 20:00.

All alcohol sales would also be banned, and every individual who failed to wear a mask in public places would face possible fines or imprisonment, he added.

On Sunday, South Africa became the first country in Africa to pass a million Covid-19 cases, with 1,004,413 infections and 26,735 deaths since the outbreak began in March.

Last week, it recorded a daily average of 11,700 new infections – a rise of 39 percent on the previous week – and from Wednesday to Friday, the daily number of new cases was above 14,000.

The 501.V2 variant is believed to be driving the surge in infections. It was identified by a network of South African scientists in the Eastern Cape province and then rapidly spread to other parts of the country.

Earlier this week, the UK banned travel from South Africa because of the new variant. Another new Covid variant has already been detected in the UK, although they have evolved separately.

Both have a mutation – called N501Y – which is in a crucial part of the virus that it uses to infect the body’s cells, but appear unrelated to each other.

After South Africa, the worst hit country on the African continent is Morocco, which has seen 432,079 cases and 7240 deaths. They are followed by Egypt with 132,541 cases and 7405 deaths and Tunisia with 131,592 infections and 4466 deaths.

-BBC

Covid-19

Covid-19 update: 8544 new cases, 39 further deaths linked to virus

Published

3 years ago

June 19, 2023

News Staff

There were 8544 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Aotearoa in the week to midnight on Sunday, and a further 39 deaths attributed to the virus.

The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3077.

In addition, there were 246 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday with six in intensive care.

The seven-day rolling average of cases was 1217.

Last week, 9883 new Covid-19 cases were reported and a further 37 deaths were attributed to the virus.

Source: RNZ

Covid-19

Dr Jonathan Howard: why US doctors spread Covid disinformation

Published

3 years ago

May 21, 2023

News Staff

An American doctor believes more than 800,000 Americans would be alive today, if the US had taken New Zealand’s Covid approach.

Jonathan Howard, who is the chief of neurology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, said he was angry that influential health professionals minimised the seriousness of the virus.

“We want them infected,” was the call of then presidential science adviser Paul Alexander.

It’s also the title of Howard’s new book, which tells the story of how some medical and public health professionals came to become anti-vaccine and pro herd immunity.

He told Kim Hill on Saturday Morning there was a deluge of mis-information from prominent US doctors, some of whom wanted to actually spread the virus.

“Famous doctors from our top universities went on television and told people that Covid was just going away, that it was just the flu, that young people under the age of 65 have essentially no risk,” he said.

“And not only were there not attempts to limit the virus, these were loud influential voices who wanted to spread it.

“You can read quotes from our former Covid advisor, Donald Trump’s former Covid advisor, celebrating rising cases, saying this is a good thing when cases rise, which is shocking and astonishing.”

While Howard said there were obvious differences between the two countries, many lives could have been saved if the US had taken a similar approach to New Zealand.

“If we had limited infections until we had vaccinated the vast majority of our population, we would have potentially had hundreds of thousands of people still alive today, there’s no question about that.”

However, our zero-Covid strategy wasn’t without its critics, with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya writing that it had “cost New Zealand dearly”.

“I think that the fact that most of your grandparents are still alive means that zero Covid did not cost you dearly,” Howard said in response.

“I don’t discount that, there were real costs of the lockdowns, I don’t know anyone who argues otherwise and I want to be very clear that I was protected from those costs, meaning I am very fortunate to be employed, I worked throughout the pandemic, I was never lonely, I don’t have my own business.”

But Howard said he didn’t think that the alternative – letting the virus spread freely – would have yielded a better outcome.

He said that when forklifts were needed to move bodies into giant refrigerated trucks in New York, it was fantasy to imagine the city could have operated as normal during the pandemic.

“You talk about deferred healthcare – every single healthcare worker was working with Covid patients, our hospitals were overflowing,” he said.

“So when I hear people lament they missed cancer screenings, who would have done those screenings? Would elderly patients have left their house to go to crowded waiting rooms to get a mammogram for example? I don’t think so.

“I think that the fantasy is that things could have just been normal if only if it hadn’t been for overly cautious politicians.”

By comparison, New Zealand did well, Howard said.

“I look at the numbers, I look at your death rate with great jealousy.” he said.

“And I think for long periods of time your economy was more open than ours was because we had to keep locking down, just because there were overwhelming outbreaks of the virus.”

Howard said the fact many older New Zealanders were still alive compared with the US statistics, showed the success of this country’s Covid strategy.

Source RNZ