Health experts are appealing to South Africans to refrain from social gatherings and adhere to all COVID-19 precautionary measures as the country battles to curb the highly transmissible Delta variant that is now circulating in the country.
Gauteng is currently the epicenter of the third wave with more than 11 000 of the 17 958 new infections recorded in the country.
Latest SA COVID-19 stats:
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Director of research at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, Prof Tulio de Oliveira says preliminary evidence from the UK indicates that the Delta variant is 30 to 60 percent more transmissible than other variants of concern.
This includes the Beta variant that was most dominant during South Africa’s second wave.
He says the Delta variant is spreading rapidly.
“We are in the exponential stage of the pandemic which the numbers are just growing extremely fast and they will keep growing in the next weeks. And this variant displaces all the other ones and is the center of all the infections in the third phase and they start appearing with other variants here.”
Possible stricter lockdown measures
In a bid to curb the transmissions, President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to announce stricter lockdown restrictions when he addresses the nation at 8pm tonight.
He will meet with the National Coronavirus Command Council this morning which will be followed by a special Cabinet meeting to decide on the restrictions to be implemented.
President to address the nation tonight:
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