Faizel Patel – 20/08/2020

(Twitter: @FaizelPatel143)

The chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, Professor Salim Abdool Karim has pleaded with South Africans to keep up with Coronavirus regulations including the wearing of masks, sanitizing and maintaining social distancing.

Professor Karim was speaking to Radio Islam on Thursday following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that lockdown regulations will be eased to level two.

While South Africans may still be euphoric by the drop in the alert level, the alarm has already been sounded that the country may face a second wave of the pandemic.

Professor Karim says the biggest concern is that people are frustrated and tired, have become complacent and stopped following the COVID-19 rules and regulations.

“When we were back in level 5, I won’t go anywhere near somebody when I went to the shop to do my shopping. Now, I see people are letting their guard down, and when that happens, it creates the opportunity for a second surge. So, somehow we have to find a way to live with this virus, to mitigate its effects with our key three tools of social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing.”

While South Africa has seen the number of infections and deaths going down and with the recovery rate at around 80%, this may be a temporary relief.

Speaking about the decrease in the number of COVID-19 infections Professor Karim says the extensive easing of restrictions results in the number of cases also increasing.

He says while Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia were among the top  countries who did superbly well to contain the virus, their second surge is much worse than the first.

“I think we can be reasonably confident that it’s going to hit almost every country. If it can hit those countries, it can hit almost every country. So we should expect that we will be hit as well. It is not inevitable though, it’s not something that we should say oh put our hands up and we can’t do anything about it. We can do something about it and I think that’s the approach we are taking.”

Professor Karim also touched on herd immunity saying it is only a concept that can work in the absence of a vaccine if you know that a first infection with COVID-19 prevents a second infection and the experts do not know the answers to that question as yet.

Listen to the interview with Professor Salim Abdool Karim