ONE OF South Africa’s leading virologists and member of the country’s Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA), Carolyn Williamson, still remembers the telephone call in November 2020. “A worried Tulio de Olivera, head of NGS-SA, called me to inform on his discovery of a new variant of the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19. He told me about this variant’s unexpected number of mutations in the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells,” he recalls. ngssa had identified the variant, later named 501y.V2, through analysis of 2,882 whole genomes from South Africa. Within a month of the variant's discovery in the Eastern Cape Province of the country, COVID-19 cases spiked. The new variant is up to 50 percent more transmissible, say experts. “By December, this virus variant had essentially replaced the previously circulating ones,” Williamson told Down To Earth (dte). The country formally declared this as the second wave of the pandemic in December 2020. After further investigations, experts estimated that the new wave caused by the variant actually started around October 2020. It was notably rapid in parts of the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZuluNatal Provinces.
By January 2021, the second wave turned widespread and deadly. According to the World Bank’s Africa Pulse report, released on March 31, 2021, “The number of confirmed cases in South Africa increased from 14,109 per million people on December 10, 2020 to a peak of 24,435 per million people on January 30, 2021. Meanwhile, fatalities grew from 384 per million people to 741 per million people over the same time period.” This was the highest among the 54 African countries.
This story is from the April 16, 2021 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 16, 2021 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE ALCHEMY OF EMOTIONS - SL'OTH
As with all personality traits, laziness is a combination of genes and environment
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - WRATH
Anger is an emotional programme, a part of natural selection that helps us bargain for better treatment
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - GLUTTONY
We have been captured by food and it is driving us to do something that is arguably not good for us
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - ENVY
Envy gives people a fundamental desire for a higher social rank
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS-L'UST
Love, lust, attachments are basic brain circuits. They are too primitive a system and will never change
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - GREED
Evolutionary biology sees greed as a way to increase your chances of survival
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS
I felt for the tormented whirlwinds Damned for their carnal sins Committed when they let their passions rule their reason
INVISIBLE THREAT
Significant presence of microplastics in Puducherry’s agricultural soil raises concerns for soil and crop health
Feeding off each other
VEGETARIAN MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE WEST GREW WITH MUTUAL SUPPORT AND VALIDATION
India's unhealthy patent amendments
Despite strong pleas, the Modi regime has changed the rules to impose a cost on those who challenge faulty patents