Affluent areas hard hit by pre-third wave Covid-19 spike

THE majority of new Covid-19 cases are being recorded in more affluent areas, head of health in the province Dr Keith Cloete said yesterday.

During the provincial digicon briefing yesterday, Cloete said the province has over the past four weeks seen a consistent increase in cases. “We are formally in resurgence. We are just short of entering a third wave. Hospitalisations are starting to go up. Oxygen use in those hospitals is starting to go up,” Cloete said.

The province was seeing an average of 320 new diagnoses each day and 40 new hospital admissions a day. Deaths remain stable at about five or six daily.

“The clear increase in cases is predominantly from private sector laboratories, the increase in hospital admissions is now predominantly in private hospitals.

“Most of these cases are driven from more affluent areas,” Cloete said.

Overall there is a 28% week-onweek increase in cases in the metro. All the sub-districts, except Khayelitsha, are seeing an increase in cases.

In rural areas, there has been a 26% week-on-week increase in diagnoses, with the Garden Route and West Coast in particular showing large increases in infections.

By yesterday, the province had recorded a total of 295 493 cases, and 11 837 deaths.

Premier Alan Winde said the province would surpass 100 000 firstdose Pfizer vaccinations by the end of this week, using 80% of the Pfizer vaccines that were available for use.

“This week we are set to exceed our weekly target of 60 000 vaccinations comfortably, having vaccinated nearly 38 960 people in the first three days of the week so far.

“This daily target of 12 000 vaccinations per day factored in the available supply of vaccines, which arrive weekly so that we ensure a responsible, fair and equitable vaccination programme,” Winde said.

The province was also in advanced planning with partners to open mega-vaccination sites in the metro.

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande meanwhile welcomed the development of an innovative local app aimed at breaking down language barriers to improve communication of safety protocols and vital information related to Covid-19.

AwezaMed features localised technology, such as speech recognition, text-to-speech and machine translation and works on any Android smartphone.

“The app enables health-care providers to access a phrase in English, translate it into any South African official language, and play the phrase in the selected language.

“The content of the application was developed in collaboration with health experts,” Nzimande said.

The AwezaMed application can be accessed for free on the Google Play Store.