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By Robin-Lee Francke 
9h ago
CAPE TOWN – Western Cape Prime Minister Alan Winde said during his weekly digital conference Tuesday that 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 an access point.
Ramaphosa announced the closure of all beaches in the hotspot areas from December 16 to January 3.
Reviewing the conference’s health overview, the province’s health department chief, Dr. Keith Cloete, said Cape Metropole has seen sharp increases in the number of cases since the first peak and, while patterns between Sub-districts differ, all areas show an increase in COVID-19 Cases.
He said that in the first week, the South, West, North and Tygerberg sub-districts saw a marked increase in cases.
“The entire province is experiencing a rapid increase in new cases, when looking at data from the Western Cape, using data from the national health department, there has been a percentage change and the weekly average of new cases is 74.3 percent.” Cloete said. .
He said that while the Garden Route has been declared a hotspot, its Covid-19 cases are on the decline and cases from the Cape Metropole area are on the rise.
However, the Garden Route will continue to be closely monitored.
Cloete said the number of hospitalizations, the laboratory response time and the number of healthcare workers getting infected have become worrisome.
The healthcare system has been on top of things with over 22,000 Covid-19 tests conducted in the last week, meaning the tests have almost doubled in the last month.
Cloete said antigen testing has been successful on the Garden Route and Cape Metropole, but response times are increasing.
“Hospitalizations continue to increase in all districts approaching the levels observed in the previous peak. The concern with hospitalizations is that, unlike the first wave, the health department now has to deal with a large burden of trauma, ”Cloete.
Currently, the province has 1,799 patients in acute hospitals (1,041 in public hospitals and 692 in private hospitals).
Metropolitan hospitals operate at an occupancy rate of 78 percent, while rural hospitals operate at an occupancy rate of 91 percent.
Cloete said that Covid-19 cases and people under investigation only account for 13 percent of current hospital admissions in the metro and 16 percent in rural areas, but this is increasing daily.
Brackengate Hospital of Hope, as of Monday, had 253 patients (1,437 cumulative cases) and Sonstraal had 14 Covid-19 patients along with 22 TB patients.
Cloete is confident that the province will not run out of oxygen, as he said oxygen use remains stable.
“We can safely say that our oxygen supply is sufficient at the moment. The first peak we use 53 percent of our available daily capacity. Right now we use about 51 percent, so our balance to get to 80 percent is still a very long way to go and that’s a significant amount of oxygen available through our supply in the places that require it. Cloete said.
African News Agency
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