Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla said on Friday the 0.67% reproductive rate of coronavirus infections indicated that South Africa is entering stable territory.

He noted that the third wave of the pandemic lasted longer than previous waves the country experienced.

“This third wave lasted for close to 110 days, indeed much longer than the previous waves. The first wave was somewhere in the region of 80 days and second wave around 90 days,” he explained.

He said the number of new infections had consistently been dropping in the last three weeks, with a 33% reduction in the last seven days.

There has also been a 19.3% decrease in hospitalisation in the last seven days, very welcoming news, he said, meaning that there is a potential for relief for the country’s health workers.

Phaahla added that even more encouraging was the fact that the country had also seen a serious decrease in reported deaths. In the last seven days there had been a 51% reduction in reported deaths.

The overall positivity rate has remained below 5% in the last seven to 14 days.

He said average positivity rates had also reduced in all provinces, however, he did raise concerns about the Northern Cape and Free State provinces.

Phaahla explained that even though the positivity rate had gone down in these two provinces, on a number of days it had remained above 5% and this included the reported data of Thursday, where both had a 5% positivity rate.

Meanwhile, he said it was because of these encouraging declines in infections and stability of the pandemic that President Cyril Ramaphosa was able to move the country to Alert Level 1.

As of Thursday, the country recorded 989 new infections compared with previous  20 000 daily infections.

Phaahla called on citizens to continue adhering to the restrictions, saying the virus was still very much a reality.

“There are still over 5 000 people in hospital with Covid infections, of whom 885 are in the ICU and 465 are on ventilators, so this is just a reminder to all of us that indeed this virus is still very strong, is still there notwithstanding the lowering of restrictions; we can only sustain the low levels of infections if we continue to observe the personal health and safety measures,” he said.