South African Health Department Says 'No Need To Panic' As Covid-19 Cases Surge In China

The South Africa National Department of Health announced Sunday that it is closely monitoring the Covid-19 situation in China and there is no need for the public to panic, as of yet.

Although restrictions have been lifted, South Africans must not let their guard down by not vaccinating as deaths from the disease are still prevalent, according to Foster Mohale, spokesperson for the Department of Health.

"We urge people to vaccinate and get booster shots to enhance their immunity against variants and sub-variants of the pandemic," said Mohale, as per IOL.

Speaking further on the matter, he noted that the department will issue an alert if the country needs to take extra precautions to tackle the pandemic.

"One death is too many, hence we introduced additional boosters shots to enable fully vaccinated people to protect themselves and their loved ones," Mohale added.

According to Mohale, hospitalization rates for Covid-19 are very low at the current moment.

Nearly 250 million people in China may have caught the virus in the first 20 days of December, according to an internal estimate from health officials - this is despite an independent confirmation that only 18% of China's 1.4 billion people were affected, as reported by CNN.

The World Health Organization (WHO) stated this week that 37 million people were newly affected with Covid-19 across China, higher than the estimate given by internal health officials.

"Chinese scientists are invited to engage more closely in WHO-led Covid-19 expert networks including the Covid-19 clinical management network. WHO has invited Chinese scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing at a meeting of the Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution on January 3," WHO said in a statement.

In response to the surge in Covid-19 cases, several countries have instituted travel restrictions. To date, the US, South Korea, India, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia have all imposed testing requirements for travelers from China.

As of December 2022, South Africa had 10 000 active Covid-19 cases and 102000 deaths. Furthermore, over four million people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the country, IOL reported.

The number of recoveries stands at 3,930,985 with a recovery rate of 97.2%, as of December. 2022.

The country has administered 38 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines so far.