**3. The spread of COVID-19 in South Africa**

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 was recorded in South Africa on March 1, 2020, when a man later confirmed to have the virus returned with his wife and 8 others from an international trip to Milan, Italy. The confirmed patient travelled via Dubai, to O. R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, Johannesburg and then to King Shaka International Airport in Durban. It was reported on March 3, 2020 that the patient reported sick with symptoms of the virus at a private general practitioner in Durban and was asked to isolate himself while the medical doctor that attended to him also isolated herself as well. This made the Minister of Health, Dr. Zweli Mkhize, to subsequently officially announce the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in South Africa and on March 15, 2020, the President of South Africa,

Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, declared a national state of disaster [9, 14]. New cases started to emerge and it was later announced on March 7, 2020 that a woman from the same travel group from Milan, Italy has also tested positive. The virus slowly started to spread across the country and on November 11, 2020, President Ramaphosa addressed the nation to give an update on the available statistics and government's efforts towards curding the spread of the virus. Considering the gradual spread of the virus, the President announced the extension of the state of disaster by another month until 15 December 2020. As at November 2020, there were 64,552 new cases, which made the total number of confirmed cases to rise to 790,004 while the death toll rose to 21,535. Statistics at that time also showed that the number of recovered patients was 731,242, with 37,227 active cases at the end of the month [9, 15].

The second wave of COVID-19 was from December 2020 to April 2021 as the President addressed the nation on December 3, 2020 and noted that there has been a resurgence of COVID-19 in some districts of the Eastern and Western Cape provinces, with restrictions tightened for this area. This made the government to extend the national state of disaster until January 15, 2021. The third wave of COVID-19 infections was from May 2021 to October 2021 while the fourth wave was from December 2021 to April 2022 [16]. On midnight of April 4, 2022, the National State of Disaster was ended although the government still kept some transitional provisions in place for a period of 30 days. As the spread and infection of COVID-19 subsided, the South African government on June 22, 2022, through the Minister of Health, Dr. Joe Phaahla, in a notification published in the Government Gazette, repealed the country's Covid-19 laws, which abolished Covid restrictions such as the use of face masks. As at the first week of October 2022, there have been 4,024,553 COVID-19 infections, 102,246 Coronavirus-related deaths and 3,912,506 recoveries reported in the country since the pandemic began [16, 17].
