Western Cape on Level 5? Health Minister has classified Western Cape, and specifically Cape Town as have been classified as a covid-19 hotspot. Mkhile also revealed there will be a differentiation of the return to normality, at provincial, district and at ward level. Other areas in Western Cape will remain under strict restrictions such as those associated under lockdown level 5.
Here is part of Mkhize’s address in Western Cape
“We want to pay our condolences to the health worker that has died here in Western Cape being the second death of health workers.
We want to appreciate health workers in Western Cape and all over South Africa. All of them who are admitted in hospitals are being attended. We want to thank health workers and also other front line workers such as the army and police. Even if we do not say so, we want to appreciate them. There are other professionals we don’t usually mention but we appreciate them.
There are announcements that we want to make in particular to health workers. Information on prevention an control has to be available to health workers
The issue of ensuring they are well protected. The provision of PPE remains an issue in Western Cape and other areas. We have made a commitment to source that PPE so that we will always have enough in stock. I was briefing the Premier that we have formed the public health occupational safety that involves private players. We have also discusses with the MEC that when is to comes to testing the health workers are prioritised so that we know the status of front line staff.
We want to make sure our soldiers on the fore front are well trained and well equipped. At this point this is one of the issues we had to discuss. The outbreak in the Western Cape is an outbreak in South Africa and we have to work as one government. In that regard i want to thank the premier for inviting us to make this briefing. In Western Cape, It is also clear that the age and gender are similar with the whole country. The general statistics in the country are similar to the rest of the country.
About 93% of people who have died from Covid-19 in the province have at least one co-morbidity – that is, another disease.
Clearly we need to make sure we are able to test our community and make sure we find those who are positive. The number of patients who are testing positive are about 24% of the tested cases. When the analysis was done we realised we have a number of cluster outbreaks such as people sharing the same location infect one another. The people are moving out to other areas and they are spreading to other areas
Laboratories are suffering under the same constraints of lack of resources. Right now we have backlogs in Western Cape. We will need to share capacity even from the private sector. We need to discuss the pricing with the private sector.
We have to strengthen the quarantine for all people who have been in conduct with people who have tested positive. We have also decided to differentiate the easing of lockdown measures depending on the areas’ covid-19 prevalence. ”
The visit by the Minister Zweli Mlkhize comes as ANC Western Cape has called for a decision to Western Cape on Level 5
Asked on decision to put Western Cape on Level 5
Mkhize dodged the question but addressed that the government will look at cluster infections.
Read More: