Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla on Friday said that it was not yet clear if South Africa has entered the fifth wave of Covid-19 early, but the numbers suggested that the country is on the brink of one.

He said the fifth wave was expected to begin towards the middle of May or early June.

Phaahla indicated that former chair of the Covid-19 advisory committee Salim Abdool Karim on Tuesday argued from a technical definition that the country had entered the fifth wave, highlighting that more than five cases on a daily basis per 100 000 of the population indicated that most provinces had indeed entered the new wave.

However, he said from another characterisation, it was arguable that a country only entered a new wave when there was a sustained seven-day period of more than 6 237 cases per day.  

He said over the last 14 days, the rise in infections had been sustained at just going on 6 300 in one day, according to the report on Wednesday. South Africa is experiencing a large uptick of positive Covid-19 cases, with the trend sustained over the last two weeks.

“Over the last two weeks we started to notice a continuous rise in the daily infections led by the provinces of Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape. The rise in daily infections took a sharper uptick approaching the end of last week (week ended on April 23). This uptick has been sustained during the week starting April 24 until April 28,” he said.

These three provinces accounted for 85% of positive cases, a trend that has been sustained over the last seven days.

As of Thursday, Gauteng alone accounted for 53% of positive cases, KZN 23% and Western Cape 11%.

“Whichever way we look at it, it does suggest that we may actually be entering the fifth wave much earlier. We will possibly have to just wait for few more days, maybe another seven days, to be sure that this was not just sporadic uptick but [rather] a sustained uptick,” he said.

Phaahla attributed the spike in infections to the Easter and other religious holidays.

“What is also uncertain from our scientists is whether . . . it will be driven by a new variant; but at this stage we have not been alerted to a definite new variant, except changes to the Omicron variant,” he said.

Scientists have only confirmed the sub-variants of Omicron being the BA.4 and the BA.5, but [it is] not enough to be defined as variants of concern because the changes are not that significant, said Phaahla.

Meanwhile, the Minister said what is clear is that the country is still at great risk of Covid-19, especially with winter approaching and people spending more time indoors, which brings with it the risk of high spread of infections.

He urged South Africans to vaccinate ahead of winter.