Thread by @FLAHAULT

1/7 - "South African officials have met to discuss the reintroduction of tighter coronavirus restrictions as a second wave of #COVID19 infections took the number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic to more than 1m."
ft.com/content/c9a424…

2/7 - "This wave has come up quite unpredictably,” Dr Zweli Mkhize, South Africa’s health minister, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation. “The whole country is really under siege.”

3/7-"Presdt Ramaphosa was expected to announce new curbs, although some provincial leaders are resisting a return to full-scale lockdown because of the economic impact. When the lockdown measures imposed at the start of the pandemic were the most stringent, output plunged 16.4%."

4/7 - "Most of the new cases in South Africa come from a new strain of #COVID19, known as 501.V2, identified in the country this month. But Shabir Madhi, prof at the Univ of Witwatersrand, said the surge was being driven largely by behavioural change rather than by the mutation."

5/7 - "“The major driver most likely is a complacency around behaviour, particularly in relation to mass gatherings,” Dr Madhi said. Indoor activities in crowded restaurants and bars were largely to blame, he said, calling for a ban on such activities."

6/7 - "The 2nd wave began in Eastern Cape province and has spread to Western Cape. Experts worry that South Africans returning home after travelling for the holidays will bring the 2nd wave back to Gauteng province, where the major cities Johannesburg and Pretoria are located."

7/7 - "The situation in South Africa matches a second wave across much of Africa, which fared relatively well in the first wave but has seen a steady rise in infections since November. South Africa has so far chosen to buy vaccine supplies through the multilateral Covax scheme."