South Africa Passes 1m Covid Cases As Mutant Strain Spreads

SOUTH AFRICA has confirmed that it has recorded over 1 million Covid cases, as a new mutant “super spreading” strain of the virus spreads across the country.

On the 27th of December, South Africa’s health ministry made the grim announcement that the vast country had passed one million coronavirus cases. The bleak milestone comes as the African nation grapples with the new and highly contagious 501.V2 strain of the virus, which is reportedly responsible for 80-90% of new cases.

“Today, we have breached one million cumulative cases of Covid-19 in South Africa, with a total of 1,004,413 cases reported,” said the country’s health ministry in an official statement. South Africa has a death toll of 26,735.

This new figure comes just nine days after South Africa reported 900,000 cases, and two weeks prior the country was at 800,000. The South African Coronavirus Council will meet to discuss what further measures the government can take to curb the 2nd wave in Africa’s worst affected country by the pandemic.

Professor Ian Sanne, a member of the advisory committee, told South Africa’s News24 that “We are seeing a much earlier and much sharper rise in the second wave or resurgence than we anticipated”.

Meanwhile, Salim Abdool Karim, leader of the government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee, said that the new mutant virus strain “is still very early but at this stage, the preliminary data suggests the virus that is now dominating in the second wave is spreading faster than the first wave.”

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