S.Africa currently experiencing 2nd Covid-19 wave: Govt

Johhanesburg, Dec 10 Amid a continued resurgence of new coronavirus cases, South Africa was currently in the midst of a second wave of the the pandemic, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize warned.

'We are now in a second wave. We are seeing the pressure has built up in a number of provinces,' Xinhua news agency quoted the Minister as saying on Wednesday.

Mkhize made the remarks during his visit to the Nelson Mandela Bay where lockdown measures were tightened this week due to rising cases.

'It's important to highlight that today we have breached the 6,000 mark in terms of new cases which gives us a total of 828,592 of cumulative cases,' he said.

The Minister added that the four provinces driving the second wave were Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Kwazulu Natal and Gauteng.

Mkhize said there was an increasing number of young people testing positive for the virus.

'The age group 15-19 years showed the highest number of cases over the past two days,' he said.

Last week, Mkhize warned about the fact that those who had completed their high school examinations were attending events which he called 'super spreaders'.

He said there was a need to curb super spreader events across the country.

Mkhize said the infection rate was set to rise substantially.

'This rise is showing that there is going to be exponential growth and that means we must expect faster rising numbers with a possible higher peak than the first wave,' he said.

( With inputs from IANS )

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