While some South Africans have been forever changed by the pandemic in terms of embracing mask-wearing, others are patiently awaiting the day they can set foot outside… without masks.
South African epidemiologist, Prof Salim Abdool Karim told eNCA that even though he isn’t sure what the government’s plan is regarding the wearing of masks, he says that “we have reached the stage where we can change our overall strategy” by removing most of our restrictions such as the outdoor mask mandate and sanitising. South Africa will still need to put measures in place to avoid major outbreaks, he adds.
This comes in the wake of Health Minister Joe Phaahla expressing that his department was set to make recommendations on new COVID-19 regulations. This will be aimed at replacing the current rules of South Africa’s state of disaster, which is set to expire on 15 March 2022 (two years since it was announced). According to Phaahla, senior government officials are also likely to make recommendations on vaccine mandates.
In a recently published study set out to determine sero-positivity against SARS-CoV-2 before the fourth wave of COVID-19, in which the omicron variant was dominant, Wits University’s Professor Shabir Madhi said South Africa is moving towards a COVID-19 recovery phase. Sero-positivity measures the presence of antibodies against the virus; it indicates past infection.
Prof Madhi said: “South Africa needs to [recalibrate] its approach to the pandemic and to start managing it as we would do for other respiratory infections which too cause large number of hospitalisations and deaths.
“So why do I believe that we are at the tail end of this pandemic? It depends what metric you use. If it’s about infections, we’re not at the tail end. If it’s about the number of deaths that will transpire from COVID-19 during 2022, relative to the number of deaths that will transpire from other preventable causes of death in countries such as South Africa, then I believe the country has pretty much arrived towards the end of this pandemic.
“In South Africa about 10,000 to 11,000 people die of seasonal influenza every year. In 2019 tuberculosis killed 58 000 in 2019. But we are not declaring an emergency in South Africa to deal with flu or tuberculosis. Deaths from HIV, and complications from HIV, are about 70,000. But South Africa isn’t shutting down the country to prevent deaths and infections from these diseases.”
South Africa recorded 1,147 new COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour cycle on Sunday, 6 March. A total of 418 cases were identified in Gauteng, 259 in KwaZulu-Natal and 236 in the Western Cape. No deaths were reported on Sunday.
#COVID19 UPDATE: 18,709 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 1,147 new cases, which represents a 6.1% positivity rate. Today @HealthZA reports 0 deaths in the past 24–48 hrs. Total fatalities remain at 99,543 to date: https://t.co/sEdzh47UJ2 pic.twitter.com/TItTxJocEF
— NICD (@nicd_sa) March 6, 2022
As per the COVID-19 adjusted Alert level 1 restrictions, the wearing of a face mask (that covers the nose and mouth) is mandatory for every person when in a public place, excluding a child under the age of six years.
But is South Africa ready for a life without masks?
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