{"id":223301,"date":"2022-04-29T14:25:38","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T12:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/government-remains-on-high-alert-amid-increase-in-daily-covid-19-infections\/"},"modified":"2022-04-29T14:25:38","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T12:25:38","slug":"government-remains-on-high-alert-amid-increase-in-daily-covid-19-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/government-remains-on-high-alert-amid-increase-in-daily-covid-19-infections\/","title":{"rendered":"Government remains on high alert amid increase in daily COVID-19 infections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, says while the country is still at great risk of COVID-19, government is observing the daily new infections and remains on high alert.<\/p>\n

Phaahla said the next seven days until 6 May will give an indication as to whether the 5th wave of the pandemic has started.<\/p>\n

Addressing a virtual media briefing on Friday, the Minister expressed concern at the daily new infections, which has been rising to up to 6 000 new cases a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to remain on high alert. The rise in daily infections took a sharper uptick during the last week,\u201d Phaahla said, adding that the trend needs to be observed.<\/p>\n

He said government has noted the spike of cases in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

Nationally, there has been a 137% increase in new cases, compared to the seven days prior.<\/p>\n

Gauteng, Western Cape and the Northern Cape are showing the highest new daily infections.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOVID-19 remains a threat and it is not yet over\u2026 We cannot afford to drop our prevention measures. We urge those who have not vaccinated to come forward and take the jab.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still under 50% of adults that have taken one dose of the vaccination. We need to get this to 60% of adults to protect us,\u201d Phaahla said.<\/p>\n

Phaahla urged young people who are between the ages of 18 \u2013 35 to come forward in their numbers to protect themselves and the elderly people around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatural immunity wanes with time and cannot be boosted. It is only the vaccine immunity that can be boosted,\u201d Phaahla said.<\/p>\n

The Minister said as winter approaches, people will spend more time indoors, with a risk respiratory infections.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, South Africa recorded 4 146 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 780 444.<\/p>\n

The increase represents a 18.3% positivity rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been an increase of 64 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours,\u201d the Department of Health said in a statement. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, says while the country is still at great risk of COVID-19, government is observing the daily new infections and remains on high alert. Phaahla said the next seven days until 6 May will give an indication as to whether the 5th wave of the pandemic has started. Addressing a virtual media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-223301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/government-remains-on-high-alert-amid-increase-in-daily-covid-19-infections.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}