Friday | December 25, 2020

South Africa recorded a single-day highest Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic.

On Thursday, the Department of Health confirmed 14, 305 coronavirus infections surpassing Wednesday count by 259. However, the daily death record fell by 85 compared to the previous day.

Behind the exponential sudden surge is the discovery of the new Covid-19 lineage dubbed “501.V2 Variant”, according to health experts.

Yesterday’s coronavirus cases inches SA close to a million – 968, 563 – with initial reports which emerged from March this year.

Again, 326 people were confirmed dead making the total number of deaths 25, 983 to this global scourge.

UK claims refuted

SA’s Department of Health (DoH) has clarified claims by the United Kingdom (UK) government that the new Covid-19 variant reported over there is due to SA travellers to the UK.

In its media statement, DoH said:

“We have, however, noted the statement… byby the Secretary of Health in the United Kingdom, Matt Hancock, and must register out concern that some of his utterances have created a perception that the variant in SA has been a major factor in the second wave in UK. This is not correct. There is evidence that the auK variant developed earlier than the South African variant.”

The lengthy statement continued:

“In addition, the UK variant already been identified outside of the UK as reported by Prof. Neil Ferguson, a top British scientist who told the UK’s and technology committee two days ago (23 Dec 2020) that evidence from Denmark, a country with a relatively low infection rate, suggests that ‘almost certainly’ the new variant identified in the UK is already in the ‘great majority if not all’ European countries.”