NATIONAL NEWS - The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) says that an increase in weekly incidence of new cases among individuals younger than 20 years has been reported by different provinces since week 27 of 2021, but with different start weeks in some provinces.
Sahpra says this could be explained by clusters reported from schools, following reopening of private and public schools in week 30 and 31 of 2021, respectively as well as transmission in the community as this increase preceded school opening in some provinces.
The increase in cases in children in the third wave could in part be driven by the immunity gap in this age group as adults were more affected than children in the first two waves.
Issuing its surveillance reports for week 33 today (Friday 27 August), Sahpra says as of 21 August 2021, 397 437 COVID-19 admissions and 84 954 in-hospital deaths were reported in total in all nine provinces of South Africa.
Increased admissions were observed in all provinces during the third wave, which peaked in week 27.
Since then, decreases in admissions have been observed across all provinces except Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and Northern Cape also showing some increases again.
The weekly numbers of admissions in the third wave have surpassed the peak of admissions in the second wave in Gauteng and North West in both the public and private sector, and in Free State, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape in the private sector.
'We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news'
