However, Strydom noted that the “R-number” — which measures the disease’s ability to spread between people — had dropped. “We have seen a decline since May 3, when our R-number was 1.41 in the province, to 0.84 on May 29,” he said. “It’s a good improvement for us because it means somewhere we are winning.” Prof Barry Schoub, a member of the vaccines advisory committee, told TimesLIVE on Friday that the Northern Cape was certainly well into a third wave. “We always thought that when the weather gets cold and people misbehave that we were going to get a third wave and both of those have happened,” he said.