Today marks three years since South Africa went into its first Covid-19 lockdown – a move that forever changed the country’s recent history.
If a fellow South African told you on March 26, 2020, what the next three years held for the country, you would not have believed it.
The country saw never-to-be seen again restrictions made on the sale of cigarettes, alcohol, clothing (and roast chicken), but gave rise to an e-commerce sales industry, as the implementation of the curfew meant people were restricted to when and how they could move.
Images of empty streets, abandoned beaches and armed soldiers on the road were a norm for many months.
While the government has moved away from policing citizen’s movements as a bid to curb the spread of the virus, it continues to keep track of the official number of vaccines and tests administered.
According to the South African Coronavirus website over 21.4 million tests were conducted in the country, which resulted in over 4m positive cases with 3.9m people having recovered from the virus.
South Africa also recorded 102 595 deaths between March 2020 and March 2023.
As of March 18, around 38.6m vaccines were administered.
Western Cape Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said the province has already achieved herd immunity with around 1 809 active cases currently on record.
She added that since 2020 the province recorded 207 129 cases with over 7 000 deaths.
“We have now reached the point where our province has achieved herd immunity and where the department has been able to fully incorporate its Covid-19 interventions into its baseline services,” she said.
Mbombo that that as of March 20, the Western Cape had administered over 5.7m vaccines.
“This number includes individuals who are both fully and partially vaccinated. Due to the collective efforts of the government, civil society and the private sector, we were able to defeat Covid-19 and prevent our health system from collapsing,” she said.
Even though the number of active cases of Covid-19 is now only a fraction of what it was in 2020 and the lockdown period, the department said they remained committed to adhering to the national vaccination programme.
She explained that the additional pressures placed on the public healthcare system had major implications on other health services that were still being attended to.
“This had an effect on elective surgical procedures and caused substantial backlogs. In June last year, the total estimated number of surgeries needing to take place from 2020 increased to 77 000 procedures.
“Due to dedicated staff and management, as well as the Western Cape's additional allocation of R20 million to address the surgical backlog, we were able to reduce the outstanding procedures to just over 20 000 in February 2023.
“As the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness, our staff is wholly committed to working day and night to ensure that our residents continue to have access to quality services,” she said.
Professor Shabir Madhi, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, said management of Covid and vaccine programme has advanced mainly due to the immunity South Africans have developed.
“Although the current generation of Covid vaccine worked well in preventing infection due to the wild type virus (and delta variant), unfortunately that is no longer the case with Omicron. Nevertheless, infection and vaccine-induced immunity, and more so the combination of the two (hybrid immunity) protects against severe Covid and death.
“The main beneficiaries of the vaccine, now that there is also extensive infection-induced immunity, are the elderly and people with immune deficiencies or comorbidities such as chronic heart and lung conditions.
“There is little value in vaccinating children, and older individuals not at high risk of severe Covid. This could change if there is a next generation of vaccine which shows greater resilience in protecting against infection by Omicron and future variants.
“There is ongoing transmission of the virus globally, however, immunity from past infection and vaccines are reducing risk of progressing to severe disease,” Madhi said..
Weekend Argus