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Alan Winde, Prime Minister of the Western Cape.
- In the Western Cape, Covid-19 is spreading faster during the current second wave of infections than it was during the first wave.
- The Garden Route has stabilized, but the province will still follow closely.
- The province secured 744 additional beds as hospitals reached their maximum capacity.
While the second wave of Covid-19 infections is hitting the Western Cape more strongly than the first, it appears that the Garden Route is stabilizing.
Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo and the head of the provincial health department Keith Cloete briefed the media on Tuesday.
Cloete said that the province as a whole continued to see substantial increases in daily new Covid-19 cases, which are 2.4 times more than at the peak of the first wave, this despite limited testing due to holidays. and restricted testing criteria.
Hospitalizations and deaths continue to increase dramatically. New hospital admissions for Covid-19 are 50% higher and deaths 22% higher than during the first wave.
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The proportion of tests that are positive continues to rise and is now 45%, higher than the previous peak of 40%.
The Cape Town metro continues to see a sharp increase in cases, with almost double the number of new cases per day compared to the peak of the first wave.
All sub-districts of the metro have passed their first peak, except for Klipfontein and Khayelitsha, while the northern, eastern, western, and southern sub-districts have approximately three times as many cases as during the peak of the first wave.
In general, the rural districts of the province have almost two and a half times more cases now than during the peak of the first wave.
The peak of the second wave is more than twice the peak of the first wave in all rural districts except Central Karoo. However, the Garden Route continues to experience a stabilizing pattern. However, the province continues to monitor this area closely, given the large influx of visitors to the district.
Supply
Facilities in the metro and rural areas remain under pressure, particularly when it comes to oxygen supplies, and deaths are increasing.
Hospitalizations continue to rise in all districts except Garden Route, which is stabilizing.
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New admissions are now well above the peak of the first wave in all districts, and hospitals also face a high burden of trauma.
Currently, there are 3,131 patients with Covid-19 in acute care hospitals. Of these patients, 1,885 are in public hospitals and 1,246 in private ones. Metro hospitals operate at an average occupancy rate of 103%. In the George area, hospitals are at 90% capacity, in the Paarl area at 101% and in the Worcester area at 94%.
In a statement issued after the press conference, Winde said: “The Western Cape government has made every effort to add capacity to the system so that it can cope, but it is still under extreme pressure due to the rapid growth of the number of cases caused by the new variant.
“Simply put, by the end of this week the Western Cape will have added an additional 744 beds to the system. We are also prepared to scale this up to 880 beds, which will be more than the capacity of the CTICC field hospital and which was only half during the first wave “.
He said that they had decided this time to place additional beds in or near existing hospitals to make more efficient use of healthcare workers and other resources, and to build the healthcare system for their use long after Covid-19.
At the briefing, Cloete said that the data clearly shows that with each relaxation of alcohol regulation, the number of injuries steadily increases in response to the regulations introduced.
He said the largest number of increases in trauma cases last year was on boxing day. He said previous regulations on alcohol did not protect health services.
Impact
Cloete said the biggest challenge is the rising rate of Covid-19 infection among healthcare workers and the impact on isolation and quarantine of staff members.
Currently, 926 healthcare workers, in 92 institutions, are infected with Covid-19, which is 2.8% of a total complement of staff of 33,062.
However, infections in healthcare workers continue to increase. We continue to see an increase in healthcare worker infections week over week.
Tygerberg Hospital is now the hospital with the most infections in the last calendar month, reflecting the increase in cases in the subway, and in the Tygerberg sub-district in particular.
Nurses account for approximately 30% of healthcare personnel infections and physicians 12%.
The province is busy with a recruiting drive to increase its staff and has already secured 103 staff members.
