Government gears up for new variant as cases accelerate in Gauteng

The government will convene a series of high-level meetings at the weekend to discuss how to respond to the detection of a swiftly spreading new coronavirus variant dubbed B.1.1.529, which appears to be driving Gauteng’s rapid increase in cases, health minister Joe Phaahla said on Thursday.

The latest variant was first identified in Botswana on November 11. It has been confirmed in about 100 samples collected in SA, but hundreds more are being analysed and the figure is expected to rise. Koleka Mlisana, co-chair of the ministerial advisory committee on Covid-19, urged people who are not yet vaccinated to get inoculated as soon as possible. “The only solution we have for the pandemic is vaccination. If we look at the other variants of concern, we have seen that even though vaccines may not protect against infection, they have protected [people] against severe disease, hospitalisation and death,” she said.

The upswing in cases was initially clustered in Tshwane, but there is now a sustained increase across all five Gauteng metros, according to analysis from the SA Covid-19 modelling consortium, co-ordinated by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases .

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