Facts in Q&A format

According to UCT’s Faculty of Health Science, there were 254 patients hospitalised with Covid-19 on 6 September 2021.

No. Legally, no one can be forced or coerced into taking the vaccine. This was affirmed by President Cyril Ramaphosa when he addressed parliament on 3 September 2021: “No one should be forced to be vaccinated. Instead, we need to use the available scientific evidence to encourage — repeat encourage…

Clinical trials in Africa are notoriously low. The African Academy of Science estimates that only 2% of clinical trials conducted worldwide take place in Africa. South Africa became the first country on the continent to start a clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The candidate vaccine (Ox1Cov…

Covid-19 spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets. Respiratory droplets travel into the air when you cough, sneeze, talk, shout or sing. These droplets can then land in the mouths or noses of people who are near you or they may breathe these droplets in. Masks are a simple…

Temporary hair loss is normal after a fever or illness and fever is a common symptom of Covid-19. A few months after having a high fever or recovering from an illness, many people see noticeable hair loss. While many people think of this as hair loss, it’s actually hair shedding.

The medical…

Research by the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations evaluated the survival of the Covid-19 virus on different surfaces and reported that the virus can remain viable for up to 72 hours on plastic and stainless steel, up to four hours on copper, and…

An epidemic occurs when there is a higher than expected number of cases of an illness in a community or region.  

A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a disease, usually affecting a large number of people.

 

More: Is the claim of a pandemic every 100 years accurate?

Smoking is known to impair lung function, affect the immune system and can increase the severity of respiratory diseases such as influenza. Although no randomised controlled studies that have directly investigated the effect of smoking on people with Covid-19 are available at present, according to…

Hand hygiene plays a crucial part in the prevention of the spread of the new coronavirus.

According to the World Health Organization, research has shown that nurses who regularly used alcohol hand rubs had less skin irritation and dryness than those using soap and water.

As a result of the…