Johannesburg – Joburg remains home to most of the Covid-19 cases in Gauteng, the country’s coronavirus epicentre.
This was revealed by Gauteng City Region Observatory’s Gillian Maree, who was speaking during the provincial government’s weekly update on the coronavirus trends in Gauteng on Thursday.
The provincial government has reported a decline in infections which has been attributed to increased adherence to Covid-19 preventative measures recently.
Gauteng has reported 194 093 total cases, with 150 082 recoveries and 2 653 deaths to date. Johannesburg accounts for 51% (78 602) of the cases.
Ekurhuleni is next with 43 312 cases, which represents 21% of province’s cases, while Tshwane reported 40 593 cases, or 17% of the provincial total.
Maree said there was targeted testing in long-term facilities, including old-age homes and hostels that reported cases as they had significant cluster outbreaks because people shared spaces.
“The number of active cases in these facilities is a lot lower at the moment (but) we need to be really careful because... infection in these long-term facilities is likely to spread a lot quicker than many other environments,” Maree said.
She said the bulk of infections were among people of working age, between 20 to 55 years of age, with females representing 56% of those infected by the virus.
“There is a disproportional, very large number of females particularly of working age that have been testing positive. There could be reasons for this. We know that women are likely to seek medical care when they are sick. We are not sure how that relates to testing numbers as yet.
“The key reason we think this is happening is that, particularly from level 3 lockdown when going back to work, women are more likely to be in vulnerable higher-contact care positions. Women are nurses, cashiers and are more likely to be on the front line and at risk of infection,” she said.
Dr Bruce Mellado, speaking on behalf of the provincial advisory committee on Covid-19, indicated that there was a decline in hot spot activity across Gauteng which was due to the measures put in place as part of the lockdown.
Political Bureau