Professor Salim Abdool Karim, previous head of the ministerial advisory committee on Covid, has lambasted former president Jacob Zuma and his supporters for creating conditions for a super-spreader event at his Nkandla homestead last weekend.
The mass gatherings organised to show support for Zuma’s bid to stay out of jail, the non-wearing of masks and lack of social distancing drew widespread criticism for blatantly flouting adjusted level 4 regulations.
Abdool Karim warned this week: “KwaZulu-Natal is going into a third wave, this is going to speed it all up. We run the risk of seeing a very sharp rise in cases that will far exceed the second wave. The rise in cases in KwaZulu-Natal has not been so dramatic, but it is coming.
“Zuma already has a track record of not promoting and using prevention behaviours, which goes back to HIV. He is now doing the same with Covid.
“If what happened in Gauteng plays itself [out] here, yes, we will have a wave that is worse than the second. But I think the restrictions came into place at a good time, which should slow the virus down.”
However, what unfolded in Nkandla “will undermine all the benefits that we may have accrued through the government restrictions”, he said.
“Zuma and his supporters created illegal gatherings, he and his supporters were not wearing masks and he, through his spokesperson, conveyed misinformation about why he could not wear a mask, [saying] it was related to a medical condition. There is no such thing.
“This was compounded by his supporters engaging in specific activities that would increase the spread of the virus. They deliberately did things that would spread the virus, like shouting and screaming. They were literally creating a super-spreading event,” said Abdool Karim.
“Another thing is that he is over 60 and has not been vaccinated.
“These things to me are very serious. Now the question is, what is going to happen?”
Abdool Karim predicted that Zuma’s supporters were likely to have developed Covid symptoms by Friday or yesterday. “If they departed Nkandla by Wednesday then they would have put the whole of KwaZulu-Natal into a dramatic rise of cases.”
A provincial Covid-19 command council report this week warns of “an approaching danger as districts cross the third wave line”. According to the report, KwaZulu-Natal shows a percentage change increase of 45% in the number of new cases recorded in the past week.
Zuma already has a track record of not promoting and using prevention behaviours, which goes back to HIV. He is now doing the same with Covid-19
— Prof Salim Abdool Karim
“The average number of cases recorded daily has increased from 859 to 1,261 within a seven-day period. “The number of daily hospital isolations increases steadily in both private and public hospitals, including ICU and patients requiring ventilation.”
Five districts in KwaZulu-Natal have been recording high infection numbers: Amajuba, uThukela, uMzinyathi, uMgungundlovu and Zululand.
In addition, movement from provinces adjoining KwaZulu-Natal, such as Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Free State, has meant the province is likely to see a resurgence in the number of infections.
The report attributes the rise to behaviour, including a lack of adherence to nonpharmaceutical preventive measures and the continued holding of parties and other social gatherings.
According to the N3 Toll Concession — the company that manages a 415km section of the N3 toll route between the Heidelberg south interchange in Gauteng and the Cedara interchange in KwaZulu-Natal — stringent traffic checkpoints have been set at up at “strategic locations to monitor provincial border crossings and to enforce travel restrictions and curfews”. Leisure travel for Gauteng residents has been banned under the current restrictions.
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