A medical worker registers information for a patient at the Central Hospital of Wuhan on December 31 2022 as the country experiences a spike in Covid-19 infections.South Africa will adopt a wait-and-see approach before imposing Covid-19 travel restrictions on passengers arriving from China.
The spike has triggered a host of nations, including Canada, Australia, the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, to reinstate Covid-19 travel requirements of a negative Covid-19 test or testing upon arrival from those who had visited China. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases reported 117 new Covid-19 infections on January 1 with 47 cases in KwaZulu-Natal, 28 in Gauteng and 23 in the Western Cape.
De Oliveira said the wave of Covid-19 infections in China seems to be “enormous, some of the epidemiological modelling and news point to millions of daily infections and up to 9,000 daily deaths”.“To me, the reason of low severity of Omicron BA.5is because it's spread in a background of very high population immunity and better clinical knowledge of how to manage Covid-19. China has good vaccine coverage and knowledge on management.