W Cape virus war heats up

With more than 61% of SA’s total Covid-19 cases and 73% of the country’s total deaths, the province is in a race against time to protect especially the vulnerable and aged – and experts blame tourism for causing the virus hotspot.

‘Important lesson is to avoid overcrowding and to protect staff and clients.’

With the Western Cape firmly in grip of the Covid-19 epidemic, with the highest infections and deaths, the province is now in a race against time to save the vulnerable, the aged and those with comorbidities such as tuberculosis (TB) and diabetes from almost certain death.

The Western Cape has had 45 357 Covid-19 cases – more than 61% of the country’s total – and reported 1 200 deaths – more than 73% of the country’s total.

Explaining the reasons for the province’s spike in infections, head of provincial health department Dr Keith Cloete said it all pointed to early community transmissions, possibly from tourism.

“Towards the end of the tourism season we had quite a lot of people that visited the Western Cape. We had sporadic cases between the end of March and beginning of April, just before lockdown. It was possible at that point that we already had local transmission at that time,” he said.

According to Cloete, the testing regimen at that time was only on imported cases so people with symptoms, unless they had travelled overseas, were not tested.

“We know and have documented proof that towards the latter part of March, we started approaching the national department [of health] to say we had sporadic cases and needed to change the testing regimen to allow us to test people that did not have a travel history.

“The reason why we have so many cases now is because we had an earlier community transmission,” he said.

Cloete said their focus now was on their Covid-19 hotspot strategy, with key interventions including selective screening, focusing on the most vulnerable people, those at risk of severe Covid-19 or death from the virus.

He said this involved screening in old-age homes and contact with every positive case and their contacts.

“Because we know of people at