The Western Cape still has "some way to go" before it exits the fourth wave of infections, but Covid-19 numbers in the province are continuing to decline.

This comes as the province begins preparations for the fifth wave of infections, likely to take place in winter.

In a digital briefing on Thursday, Western Cape health department head Dr Keith Cloete said the province had been recording an average of 2 013 new Covid-19 diagnoses per day.

The Western Cape reached the peak of the fourth wave on Thursday, 23 December, with an average of 3 700 new infections per day.

Cloete said public holidays had thrown off testing data in the province, but this had started to normalise. He said despite higher than predicted case numbers, the province was continuing to show a decline in Covid-19 cases.

"Case numbers were higher than predicted for the past week with more testing after the public holidays. [The South African Modelling Consortium is] predicting fewer cases for next week than current actual numbers, but higher than last week's predictions," he said.

However, the Western Cape will only exit the fourth wave once it reaches an average of less than 600 daily cases based on the seven-day moving average.

"We've got a way to go before we exit the fourth wave," said Cloete.

However, hospital admissions appear to have plateaued with 217 admissions per day, he said.

Covid-19 cases at the peak of the fourth wave were 14% higher than in the third wave, said Cloete. However, hospital admissions for this wave's peak were only 63% of those recorded in the previous wave.

Based on the last two years, Covid-19 infections followed a "bimodal pattern", said Cloete, with a new wave emerging in summer and winter. The fifth wave is likely to emerge between May and July, he said.

However, Cloete said that based on the experience of the fourth wave, the department expected the fifth and sixth waves to be less severe than previous waves.