Calls for transparency in how KZN manages Covid-19
14 Jan 2021
Face masks dry on a washing line in a rural area in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The province has been hard hit by a second wave of Covid-19 and doctors fear the healthcare system is at risk of being overwhelmed. (Madelene Cronjé)
The grim reality of a second wave of Covid-19 infections in KwaZulu-Natal is perhaps best summarised by one of the province’s biggest undertakers. “We are swamped. We are exhausted,” said Nomfundo Mcoyi, whose staff at Icebolethu Funerals are frantically trying to manage the ghastly surge in business.
“Normally, we handle 150 to 200 burials around the province in a week. Last week we did 572. It is emotionally devastating. It is definitely Covid. I assure you, I estimate 400 of those 572 deaths are related to Covid.”
What we know about South Africa s coronavirus variant
Posted : 2021-01-13 10:48
Updated : 2021-01-13 10:48
A patient wearing an oxygen mask is being treated in makeshift emergency units at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, Jan. 11, 2021. AP
A new coronavirus variant discovered by South African scientists is fuelling a surge of infections nationwide and raising global concern.
Here is what we know about the variant, dubbed 501Y.V2:
- When was it discovered? -
South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on December 18 that the government had advised the UN s World Health Organization (WHO) of a new variant.
The unprecedented spike in covid-19 cases in South Africa is due to the virus variants. Scientists in the country say the transmissible nature of the variants is growing at an alarming rate, as never seen before.
Bioinformatician Houriiyah Tegally, a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, (KRISP) team that discovered the South African coronavirus variants said ‘’it is inevitable’’. The virus is evolving and the more it spreads in an uncontrolled manner in many places across the world, the more chances we are giving the virus to evolve, the most chances we are giving the virus to infect immunocompromised patients and for such new variants to escape , Tegally said.