Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

COVID-19 and Easter Weekend: Same trends as the festive season may lead to a third wave

01 April 2021 | Story Andre Damons | Photo istock

COVID third wave_read more — The Easter weekend runs the risk of being a major catalyst for the third wave and people’s behaviour will be the primary driver of transmission for the third wave.

Similar trends as during the festive season of 2020 – when the behaviour of people was driving COVID-19 transmissions and played a role in the second wave – have emerged due to the Easter holidays, and may contribute to a third wave.

“This means that we can already anticipate gatherings and a higher rate of travel during the next three weeks. As a result of this as well as non-adherence to the non-pharmaceutical interventions, we can anticipate this event to serve as a catalyst for transmission.”

“If nothing is done to prevent this, it is anticipated that the Free State will see a steady increase and a potential third wave between 17 April and 26 June,” says Herkulaas Combrink, the interim Director of the UFS Initiatives for Digital Futures and PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Pretoria (UP).

The Easter weekend runs the risk of being a major catalyst for the third wave

According to him, the vulnerability and population density dynamics in each province, the behaviour of people, and the social norms between communities must be taken into consideration to contextualise the impact of Easter on disease transmission – especially when looking at SARS-CoV-2.

For the Free State, the Easter weekend runs the risk of being a major catalyst that will lead up to the third wave, says Combrink. “If no interventions are put in place and people do not adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions to mitigate the spread of the disease, then we will see a steady climb and increase in cases up until that time. This means that the behaviour of people will be the primary driver of transmission for the third wave.”

Reducing the severity of the third wave

According to Combrink, who is involved in risk communication and vaccine analytics with other members of the UFS, we may be able to reduce the severity of the third wave if the variant remains the same and the vaccination roll-out plan is in full effect. It will also help if the correct number of people are vaccinated, the general population adheres to PPE and mitigation strategies, and people practise the appropriate behaviour as indicated in all official COVID-19 communication, including the UFS COVID-19 information page.

According to Prof Felicity Burt and Dr Sabeehah Vawda, both virology experts in the UFS Division of Virology, the current vaccination programme is aimed at reducing the severity of the disease among health-care workers. Prevention of further waves of infection through vaccination will require sufficient coverage to induce at least 70% herd immunity in the country. Currently, no country has achieved that level of herd immunity through vaccine programmes – this is the long-term goal of vaccination.

“Irrespective of the government’s vaccination programmes and schedules and a virus that may mutate and perhaps become more virulent, the fundamental ways to protect yourself remain unchanged, namely social distancing, wearing of masks, and regular hand washing. People need to realise that this ‘new normal’ is going to be with us for a while and remains the best defence against all SARS-CoV-2 viruses and even provides protection against other respiratory pathogens.”

Vaccines and mutations

The exact frequency of mutations differs between different types of viruses, but generally, SARS-CoV-2 is known to have a slower ‘mutation rate’ than other RNA viruses because of its built-in ‘proofreading’ enzyme. The true mutation rate of a virus is difficult to measure, as the majority of mutations will be lethal to the virus. Irrespective, very few have actually resulted in clinical impact.

“This highlights the rather gradual process of mutation, so vaccines should remain effective or at least partially effective in the near future, as they elicit antibodies that target different parts of the virus. Continuous surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 is necessary and ongoing to monitor for changes that may impact vaccines and diagnostic tests,” the experts say.

According to Prof Burt and Dr Vawda, scientists are continuously monitoring the situation to detect if the current vaccines would remain effective and to try to adjust them accordingly. How or when the virus will mutate in a clinically significant way is unknown, so at this point, the current vaccines have been shown to be effective against severe disease and hence have application in reducing significant disease.

“There remains a lot unknown about the extent of protection and the duration of protection, and it is obviously hoped that the vaccine’s immune response in the human body would be able to provide at least some protection or decrease the possibility of severe disease even against potentially newer variants.”

Dr Sabeehah Vawda is employed by the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) as a pathologist in virology and by the UFS as a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Virology.

Prof Felicity is an expert in arbovirology in the Division of Virology and holds a South African Research Chair in Vector-borne and Zoonotic Pathogens Research.

Herkulaas Combrink is the Interim Director of the UFS Initiatives for Digital Futures and PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Pretoria.

News Archive

UFS breakthrough on SRC

2005-06-10

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) today unanimously approved the establishment of a Central Student Representative Council (CSRC) to ensure the democratic participation of students at its three campuses in the governance of the university.

In a major breakthrough and transformation step for student governance, the Central SRC will include representatives of the main campus in Bloemfontein, the Vista campus and the Qwaqwa campus of the UFS.

The establishment of the Central SRC follows the incorporation of the Qwaqwa campus into the UFS in January 2003 and the incorporation of the Vista campus in Bloemfontein into the UFS in January 2004.

According to Dr Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: Student Affairs, today’s decision of Council is the result of a lengthy, negotiated agreement between the three campuses. Independent experts facilitated part of the process.

With the establishment of a Central SRC, the UFS has adopted a federal student governance model whereby the CSRC is the highest representative student body on matters of common concern for all students.

However, the three campuses of the UFS will retain autonomous SRC structures for each campus with powers and responsibilities for matters affecting the particular campus.

This arrangement will be reviewed after a year to make allowance for the phasing out of students at the Vista campus, as was agreed in the negotiations preceding the incorporation of that campus into the UFS.

The central SRC will have a maximum of 12 members made up of members of the campus SRCs, including the presidents of these three SRCs. In total, the main campus will have 5 representatives, the Qwaqwa campus will have 4 representatives and the Vista campus will have 3 representatives.

From these 12 members a central SRC president will be chosen on a quarterly basis to represent the general student body at Executive Management, Senate and Council.

In another key decision and significant step forward affecting student governance, the Council also approved amendments the constitution of the Student Representative Council (SRC) of the main campus. These amendments were the results of deliberations of student organizations, the SRC and the Student Parliament of the UFS main campus.

The amendments to the constitution of the main campus SRC determines that nine of the 18 SRC members must be elected by means of proportional representation and nine on the basis of an individual, first-past-the-post election.

This decision comes in the wake of calls by certain student organizations on main campus for proportional representation to be included as a means of electing student representatives.

The following portfolios of the main campus SRC will be contested by individual candidates on the basis of first past the post:

president
secretary
academic affairs
legal and constitutional affairs
student development
arts and culture
men’s internal liaison
ladies internal liaison
media, marketing and liaison

The following nine portfolios will be contested by affiliated organizations on a proportional representation basis.

two vice-presidents
treasurerdialogue and associations
transformation
campus affairs and recreation
sport
international affairs
community service

It also is a breakthrough to have all constitutional changes processed and approved at the June meeting of the Council, with all relevant student organizations having been part of the process and accepting the outcome of the process.

According to the chairperson of the UFS Council, Judge Faan Hancke, today’s unanimous decisions on student governance are an indication of how all UFS stakeholders represented in Council are committed to finding win-win solutions in the interest of the university.

“Once again the UFS has reached another milestone in its transformation and has shown the rest of the country that we are pioneers in the field of reaching intelligent solutions to complex situations,” Judge Hancke said.

According to Dr Moraka, the central SRC constitution will come into effect from the start of the second semester this year.

MEDIA RELEASE

Issued by: Lacea Loader
    Media Representative
    Tel: (051) 401-2584
    Cell: 083 645 2454
     E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

10 June 2005

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept