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COVID-19 SECOND WAVE ALERT FOR ESWATINI

11/12/2020 01:31:00 BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA and SITHEMBILE HLATSHWAYO

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MBABANE – Is South Africa setting a precedent of what might befall the Kingdom of Eswatini in terms of COVID-19 infections?

Following South Africa being declared to be officially on the second wave of COVID-19, Eswatini has been warned of same befalling the country.

This warning was sent out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to locals.

“The second wave is definitely coming to Eswatini if people continue being as relaxed as they are now,” warned WHO Health Promotion Officer Dr Kevin Makadzange in an interview yesterday.

His warning comes after South Africa’s Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that the neighbouring country had, according to its statistics models, entered the second wave of COVID-19 infections.

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Mkhize said this on Wednesday, highlighting that the four provinces that were driving up the cases were the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Gauteng.

According to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, a second wave is defined as a new wave lasting one or more days, commencing after the end of the first wave.

It further refers to an occurrence, after the previous peak, where the caseload returns to at least 30 per cent of the previous peak’s case load.

The WHO health promotion officer said the increasing number of infections recorded towards the end of November and currently, were an in indication that the country was about to enter another wave.

“The daily infections have spiked from what they were in October,” said Makadzange.

According to the daily COVID-19 infections that are being released by the Ministry of Health daily, there were less than 10 confirmed cases on average in October.

Towards the end of November, daily cases shot up to between 15 and 35 on average.

“South Africa has set a precedent and we might follow soon by having a high number of daily infections like we did in the past months. This may be attributed to the fact that people have become relaxed and they are now in festive season mode which does not regard social distancing,” said Makadzange.

He went on to say that people should not get carried away and be relaxed because the virus was still here and it had not been neutralised.

“COVID-19 is still a very serious disease and people are dying. People should continue washing their hands, sanitise and wear face masks,” said the health promotion officer.

He said people should not get carried away because of the festive mood and ignore health guidelines, such as social distancing.

Other countries that have been hit by the second wave, apart from South Africa, include Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and other European countries.

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However, Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi mentioned that while the COVID-19 positive cases continued to increase, Eswatini was not at a point where it could declare the second wave. She clarified that the country was in the midst of spikes, which were common.

Nkosi said in the next two days, they would be monitoring closely the trend of COVID-19 to determine whether the country was on the second wave or not. She said; “We are very much concerned and watching the space.”

She noted that a second wave would be determined by the spikes, intensity and deaths on a daily basis, adding that once over 130 positive cases were recorded a day, it would be the second wave.

She said such a figure would have exceeded the number of positive cases which were recorded around July and August, placing the country on a first wave.

She said there was an indication that by the end of December, the country would record more COVID-19 positive cases considering the rate of travel by most citizens.

This, she said, was driven by the opening of the economy and relaxation of the regulations.

Meanwhile, she said testing had been intensified as private and public hospitals were conducting the COVID-19 testing.