A post circulating on Facebook in December 2020 claims that “South Africa has entered a second wave of Covid-19 infections”.
Facebook marked the post as possibly false, but it’s true.
In a speech on the evening of 9 December, South Africa’s minister of health, Zweli Mkhize, confirmed that the country had officially entered a second wave, according to criteria formulated by scientists and modeling teams.
Four provinces in South Africa – the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng – were driving the new wave, he said.
The country recorded over 6,000 new Covid-19 cases on 9 December, bringing the total number of cases to 828,598. Just over 50,000 of those were active cases.
As South Africa approaches the festive season, Mkhize urged people to continue practicing “non-pharmaceutical interventions” such as social distancing and the wearing of face masks.
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