South Africa, Durban – Teens flood the party scene to celebrate the end of the school year and for many of them, they are celebrating the end of school, having completed matric.
However, during a global pandemic mixing with thousands of random strangers is not the wisest thing to do and as a result, testing centres are being overwhelmed by Covid-19 tests.
According to Dr. Kamz Govender of the Value Health Hillcrest Medical & Urgent Care Centre, many of the test are being requested by families who learned that their children’s friends had tested positive for Covid-19.
Rage events hosted across South Africa are potential “super spread events” – Medical centres in KZN are being overwhelmed by requests for Covid-19 tests – 95% of teens attending the events who tested positive did not show any symptoms.
“The past 48 hours has been overwhelming as a practitioner in the Upper Highway area with an influx of teens requiring Covid-19 PCR tests. This has been largely due to them attending the annual matric Rage event over the last week and having multiple friends whom have tested positive for Covid-19.”
In most cases, as many as 95%, the teens who have tested positive have mostly been completely asymptomatic.
“Over the past two days, we noted that 95% of the teenagers who tested, were found to be Covid-19 positive, and even more worrying is that almost all were asymptomatic.”
Govender explained that this was due to their strong immune systems.
“Usually, youngsters have a robust immune system and recover very quickly with minor or no symptoms, however, this age group also tends to socialize in large groups & this will most certainly increase the spread of the virus during the festive period. (Super spread event).”
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