Experts say vaccines are effective as SA COVID cases soar
The latest figures have painted a rather bleak outlook in South Africa’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
A record number of new covid 19 cases of 24,270 were identified in the last 24 hours, with Gauteng being the epicentre with 58% of the infections.
The current third wave is being driven by the Delta variant, which is about 60% more transmissible.
However, new data shows that the vaccines currently being administered work better against this variant.
Today the cumulative number of #COVID19 cases in SA is 2 019 826. The number of new cases is 24 270. In the last 24 hours, 303 deaths have been reported which brings the total to 61 332 death reported as at 17:00. Number of recoveries is 1 773 930 with a recovery rate of 87.8% pic.twitter.com/0XOtK5FBi3
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) July 2, 2021
Professor Penny Moore on Friday said data showed that the vaccines in South Africa were very effective.
“The punchline of all this work we’re conducting in many labs across the world is that existing laboratory data suggests that vaccines we are using in South Africa will work better against the Delta variant than they would’ve against the Beta variant.”
Meanwhile, Professor Glenda Gray said data also showed that people who had received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine were protected against the new strains, even eight months later.
“We see surprising durability in the immune response for the single-dose J&J right up to eight months and we don’t need to boost the J&J vaccine just yet but we do need to keep following up.”
The country is hoping to up their vaccine program and jab as many as a 150,000 people per day by next week.
-EWN
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