Western Cape ready for second wave of Covid-19

Cape Town 26 -11-2020 Western Cape Premier Alan Winde is worried by a Covid-19 resurgence, with a growing number of infections and hospitalisations pic on file

Cape Town 26 -11-2020 Western Cape Premier Alan Winde is worried by a Covid-19 resurgence, with a growing number of infections and hospitalisations pic on file

Published Dec 15, 2020

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CAPE TOWN – Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said on Tuesday during his weekly digital conference the province was ready for the second wave of Covid-19.

On Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa introduced additional restrictions for the country and the Garden Route in the Western Cape was named as a hotspot.

Ramaphosa announced the closure of all beaches in the hotspot areas from December 16 until January 3.

Going through the health overview of the conference, head of department for health in the province Dr Keith Cloete said the Cape Metropole has seen sharp increases in case numbers from the first peak and while patterns between sub-districts differ, all areas show an increase of Covid-19 cases.

He said in the first week, the southern, western, northern and Tygerberg sub-districts saw a stark increase in cases.

“The entire province is experiencing a rapid increase of new cases, looking at the Western Cape data, using the data from the national department of health, there has been a percentage change and the weekly average of new cases is 74.3 percent,” Cloete said.

He said while the Garden Route has been declared a hotspot, its Covid-19 cases are decreasing and the Cape Metropole area cases are increasing.

However, the Garden Route will continue to be monitored closely.

Cloete said the number of hospitalisations, laboratory turnaround time and the number of healthcare workers getting infected has become concerning.

The healthcare system has been on top of things with more 22,000 Covid-19 tests done in the last week, which means testing has nearly doubled in the past month.

Cloete said antigen testing has been successful in the Garden Route and Cape Metropole but turnaround times are increasing.

“Hospitalisations continue to increase across all districts approaching levels seen at the previous peak. The concern with hospitalisations is that unlike during the first wave, the health department now has to contend with a high trauma load,” Cloete.

Currently, the province has 1,799 patients in acute hospitals (1,041 in public hospitals and 692 in private hospitals).

Metro hospitals are running at an occupancy rate of 78 percent while rural hospitals are running at a occupancy rate of 91 percent.

Cloete said Covid-19 cases and people under investigation only make up 13 percent of current hospital admissions in the metro and 16 percent in the rural areas, but this is increasing daily.

The Brackengate Hospital of Hope, as of Monday had 253 patients (1,437 cumulative cases) and Sonstraal 14 Covid-19 patients along with 22 tuberculosis patients.

Cloete is confident the province will not run low on oxygen utilisation as he said usage of oxygen remains stable.

“We can confidently say that our oxygen supply is sufficient at this point in time. The first peak we used 53 percent of our available daily capacity. At the moment we use about 51 percent so our balance to get up to 80 percent is still a very far way to go and that is significant oxygen available through our supply across the places that require them,” Cloete said.

African News Agency

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