'The worst is yet to come' - WHO's bleak Covid-19 forecast

The WHO on Tuesday said that the coronavirus crisis was not even close to being over and that the worst is yet to come.

The worst is yet to come.

Those were the words of WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a virtual briefing on Tuesday.

Six months into the global coronavirus crisis and with a worldwide death toll of more than half a million, he said the pandemic was 'not even close to being over.'

In South Africa numbers have continued to spike in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng with Gauteng Premier David Makhura warning residents to brace themselves for a peak in infections.

Epidemiologist Dr Jody Boffa spoke to Cape Talk's John Maytham about whether it's time to return to stricter lockdown regulations.

She says there is a case to be made for higher levels of lockdown to be reinstated in areas that do not have the capacity to cope with increasing hospital admissions.

While we were under that hard lockdown...people were taking it a lot more seriously...the wearing of masks, the social distancing, the washing of hands...being in a harder lockdown makes people more accountable.

Dr Jody Boffa, Epidemiologist and Research fellow at Centre for Rural Health - University of KwaZulu-Natal

[The ban on] alcohol, as much as people hate to hear it...it really reduced the burden on hospitals...

Dr Jody Boffa, Epidemiologist and Research fellow at Centre for Rural Health - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Listen to the full interview below:

More from Covid-19 coronavirus explained