Province experiencing a Covid-19 resurgence

THE Western Cape is seeing a resurgence of Covid-19 infections and preparations for the third wave are in full swing even though the expectation was that the third wave will be lower than the second wave, provincial head of health Dr Keith Cloete said.

Giving a provincial overview, Cloete said: “Numbers of daily new Covid-19 cases are starting to increase again. We are now seeing on average 170 new diagnoses each day and there has been a 39% week on week increase.

“Admissions and deaths are also increasing slightly, but the absolute numbers are still small. On average, we are having 29 admissions and four deaths each day, and the average proportion positive has increased to 5.8% on May 9, 2021, driven largely by increased positivity in the private sector last week.

Cloete was speaking at Premier Alan Winde’s final digicon on the vaccine roll-out strategy ahead of the start of phase 2 vaccine roll-out for the over 60s on Monday.

He said that in the Cape Metro, an increase in cases reported at private clinics and hospitals in the Northern, Eastern and Western sub-districts have been noted.

As Cloete was speaking, National Institute for Communicable diseases (NICD) acting executive director Professor Adrian Puren said that while the recent rapid increase in the percentage testing positive for Covid-19 and the seven-day moving average of confirmed cases across all provinces, was cause for concern, South Africa had not entered a new wave, yet.

“While we have not yet crossed the national threshold for a new wave, the current trajectory is worrisome and should it continue its course, we will likely cross the threshold for a new wave in the coming weeks,” he said.

With regards to the province’s readiness for the third wave in terms of personal protective equipment supplies, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said: “In my Budget speech, I committed to R832 million of which R250m is for PPE and R250m is for the surveillance and testing while R332m is to ensure that the Brackengate Hospital of Hope and Sonstraal Hospital are able to continue operations.

“We are ready for the third wave. The acute care beds and critical care beds are all still there and in fact, they have been underutilised. We are relying on you, the public, to assist us in delaying it.”

Meanwhile, at the start of the week, there emerged reports that people who were non-health-care workers had jumped the queue to be vaccinated.

Yesterday, Premier Winde said: “It is absolutely not acceptable to try to cheat the system, to try to push your way in front of a vulnerable citizen or a health-care worker. That is unacceptable, it is not cool at all and we definitely need everyone to stand together.”