Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla has expressed concern over what he calls a "worrying trend" in the Western Cape and Northern Cape, where younger people aged between 10 and 19 are testing positive for Covid-19.

Addressing the media on Friday morning he said while some clusters could be traced to school openings there were also indications of social activities such as partying without precautions.

Phaahla said the third wave was dragging longer and in the absence of new variants it could only mean that more people were not taking precautions.

He warned that by the time the country saw a fourth wave, driven by a new variant, the country could still be in the medium trend of the third wave, which would impact health workers.

To date South Africa has recorded a total of 80 826 Covid-19 deaths with 357 of those in the last 24 hours.

Over the last seven days South Africa has seen a 2.2% decrease in new cases, which Phaahla said was a very slow reduction, with increases in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape and Free State over the last seven days.

He said the third wave was continuing to behave in an unpredictable manner, different from the first and second waves.

“The case trajectory had showed an initial steep downward trend since 9th July, however since 13 August cases started to trend upwards. This fluctuation can also be seen in individual provinces such as the Western Cape, Northern Cape, and the Free State especially. The encouraging thing is that Gauteng which was the first and significant epicentre has sustained a continuous downward trend,” he revealed.

He reported that admission to hospitals had reduced by 0.7% to 13 600 yesterday which he said was still small.

Over the last seven days hospitalisations reduced by 3.3%.

VACCINATION

The US government has donated an additional 2.2-million doses of Pfizer vaccines through Covax, which are expected to arrive on Saturday. 5.6-million doses were received in July.

Phaahla said the response of young people between the ages of 28 and 34 to get vaccinated has been overwhelming.

“On the first day, on 20 August, we registered more than 560 000 and vaccinated more than 81 000. Even the weekend numbers went much higher. Since Monday 23 August our overall daily vaccinations have been above 240 000, even reaching above 260 000, with 268 000 on Wednesday and 265 000 yesterday on Thursday,” he highlighted.

The total number of vaccines administered so far has reached 11.648-million, an increase of just a little under 1.5-million more doses in the last seven days.

The total number of individuals with at least one jab of either Pfizer or J&J is now 8.841-million people which is 1-million more than the numbers from the same time, last week.

The total number of people fully vaccinated either with one dose of J&J or two doses of Pfizer is now 5.450-million which is 850 000 more than last week.

The male to female ratio is being narrowed possibly by the young people now at 58.5 females to 41.5 males.

The Minster said the department was happy that many people were ignoring the fake news being peddled, unfortunately even by a few health professionals.

He urged the youth to encourage their parents and older relatives to come forward.

He said discussions were ongoing on suggestions made by various influential people in society that government should consider a mandatory vaccination policy.