Faith Nyasuguta
According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) ,severe lockdowns are no longer the best way to battle coronavirus waves.
“The period where we are using severe lockdowns as a tool is over. We should actually be looking at how we use public health and social measures more carefully and in a balanced way as the vaccination increases,” John Nkengasong, the director Africa CDC said.
With that, governments are now being called upon to use public health and social measures to shrink the number of virus infections.
“There should also be an emphasis on vaccinations,” the Africa CDC briefing said.
As 2021 was coming to an end, a number of countries experienced new waves of Covid-19 infections.
Experts indicate that COVID-19 cannot be scrapped and will likely become endemic, meaning it will always be present in the population to some degree, just like the flu or chickenpox.
The latest Africa CDC figures show that less than 10 per cent of Africa’s population has been fully jabbed against COVID-19 with many nations initially struggling to access sufficient shots and later battling to get their population vaccinated.
In the last four weeks, Africa has experienced a 36 per cent jump in new cases reported in Africa, with an eight per cent average increase in new deaths.
For South Africa, the recent surge in cases has been attributed to the new variant Omicron.
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