The previous delta wave's doubling time was of 8 days, while that of the first wave was of 14 to 15 days, explained Mrabet, who is also the president of the National Association of Field Epidemiology, in a LinkedIn commentary on the COVID-19 situation as of January 9.
He stressed that "Morocco goes to the red level" during the fourth week of the third wave, noting that new infections, unsurprisingly, continue to increase very rapidly for the fourth consecutive week. The last weekly change record of 231.3% has never been recorded since the beginning of community transmission in Morocco.
Weekly positivity rate has increased in all regions, with a nationwide doubling (from 10.2% to 21.7%), he added. The effective reproduction rate of SARS-CoV-2 is 1.33 (standard deviation: 0.01).
Severe Covidosis incidence has unfortunately also increased this week (1 per 100,000 inhabitants) as the specific mortality did (from 0.5 to 1.5 per 1 Mln inhabitants). These two indicators will increase in the coming weeks, Mrabet warned.
The level of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is high at the national level. At the regional level, Casablanca-Settat reports a very high transmission level, while Rabat-Salé-Kenitra and Marrakech-Safi regions show a high level of transmission, he revealed, specifying that this level remains moderate in other regions.
He also reported a shift of 3 weeks between central, northern and southern Morocco, explaining that transmission peaks will be reached at different dates depending on the region.
In any case, the objective remains to reduce the wave's severity and mortality through three actions. These are namely the individual preventive measures (i.e. mask use, distancing and hygiene), vaccination, including the 3rd dose, and compliance with the therapeutic protocol, which is very rarely talked about.
Detailing the third action, he insisted that a symptomatic person must stop all group activities, including work, and must quickly get tested, while a positive person must quickly take his full treatment and also inform his close contacts to get tested.
A sick person should respect self-isolation at home: an act of citizenship, as well as a positive person at home should be very vigilant not to contaminate his or her close contacts and, finally, a sick person should monitor his or her health status and promptly consult the hospital if any sign of worsening health condition occurs, he said.