Johannesburg, Dec 10: South Africa has declared a second wave of coronavirus as the number of cases surged with the per day infections exceeding 6,000. The deadly virus has so far infected 828,598 people and claimed 22,574 lives in South Africa.

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"We are now experiencing a second wave,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday.

A total of 6,709 new cases were reported overnight. The virus also claimed 135 lives in the last 24 hours.

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Daily cases peaked at around 15,000 in July. The current positivity rate is 18 per cent, Mkhize said. The second wave is being driven by Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, he said.

A seven-day moving average graph shows that the increases in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are exponential, the minister said.

“This means that we should expect faster rising numbers with a higher peak than in the first wave,” he said.

Mkhize expressed concern that in the last two days the peak of infections was among young people aged between 15 and 19.

“This is believed to be due to large number of parties involving young people drinking alcohol with no adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as wearing of masks, social distancing and hand and surface sanitising. This inevitably leads to super spreader events which spill over into the rest of the country as this age group is highly mobile and the majority of the carriers are asymptomatic," he said.

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