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With most of the country experiencing a second wave, COVID-19 hospital admissions are rising,
and provinces across the country are starting to prepare for the worst.

Many are scrambling to make more beds available.
etv news producer Nic Andersen gives us an overview of the latest from our country's hospitals.

The Eastern Cape Department of Health has issued a warning to people, not to exhume the bodies of those who died of COVID-19. It is reported that some families have been digging up the bodies of loved ones and unwrapping their bodies. Some believe that the wrapping won’t allow their loved ones to rest in peace. Zolani Mkiva, General-Secretary of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa says people must refrain from doing this.

With an increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases, our country’s been struggling to contain a second wave of infections, which appears to be driven by a mutated form of the virus. Professor Tulio de Oliveira is the director of the KZN Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform at UKZN. He spoke to us earlier to discuss the 501.V2 coronavirus variant.

Could we have had access to a COVID-19 vaccine much earlier and at a cheaper cost?
And is our government putting all of its eggs in the COVAX basket?
That’s the questions we asked Professor Helen Rees.
She’s the Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Insitute.
Rees is also the chair of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority.

Over 1800 new coronavirus cases have been recorded in the Eastern Cape.
The total number of infections currently stands at more than 148 000.
To explain how things are unfolding in that province,
we spoke to investigative journalist, Estelle Ellis.

For an update on a COVID-19 vaccine for South Africa, the myths and misconceptions surrounding vaccines, policy implications and how the vaccine will work, we spoke to Professor Jeffrey Mphahlele. He is with the South African Medical Research Council.

It's been a long 12 months since we all got wind that the coronavirus had made its way to our country. With today marking exactly a year since the first case was confirmed, we thought we would take a trip back down memory lane, to look at some of the key moments and memories of the past year. Our producer, Nic Andersen, joined us to help us look back.

Just as families were recovering and re-establishing life in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic,
researchers say widespread deaths linked to the coronavirus pandemic, is now threatening their new family order.

Natalie Malgas has this story.

If we continue vaccinating an average of 6 000 people a day, it will take us 18 years to vaccinate 67 percent of the population.
But don't fear. According to Dr Glenda Gray, CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, and lead researcher in the J&J vaccine trial, the process is about to be sped up significantly. She says it’s important to vaccinate about 500 000 healthcare workers
before a potential third wave of COVID-19 infections.

Dr Saadiq Kariem, the Western Cape Health Department’s head of operations, says it’s difficult to predict how close we are to a potential third wave of coronavirus infections. The WasteWater Surveillance has been a good indicator of the second wave in the province.
Kariem joined us to tell us what the indications are now.