Cape Town - To date, 6 025 people have died since South Africa entered the third wave a month ago, according to data from the Department of Health.
South Africa technically entered the third wave on June 10, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, at which point, the cumulative death toll since the start of the pandemic was 57 474. By Thursday, the cumulative death toll had risen to 63 499.
Over the past three days, the country has recorded a staggering 1 328 Covid-19 related deaths.
South Africa is firmly in the grip of a third wave of Covid-19 infections driven by the highly infectious Delta variant, and the epidemic is still spreading, according to Professor Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the KZN Research Innovation & Sequencing Platform (KRISP).
Briefing the media on developments around the pandemic on Friday, Professor de Oliveira said that the rapid spread of the Delta variant of Sars-CoV2 was also responsible for the steep rise in daily deaths reported.
The good news for South Africans is that scientific data has shown that the Delta variant is neutralised by vaccines, according to de Oliveira.
To date, more than four million South Africans have been vaccinated.
Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi announced on Friday that registration for vaccinations would open for people between 35 and 49 years old from July 15, and that government aims to start inoculating this latest cohort by August 1.
On June 27, President Cyril Ramaphosa moved the country to lockdown alert level 4 in an attempt to slow the rate of infections and alleviate the strain on health facilities. Public gatherings and alcohol sales were banned, and funerals were restricted to 50 persons.
This weekend, the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) will meet to consider what the best course of action will be as new confirmed daily infections continue to climb, with numbers hovering above 20 000 per day.
IOL