Unused hotels to serve as quarantine sites in anticipation of level 3 infection spike

Due to a lack of activity, thanks to the lockdown, the hospitality sector has reportedly approached the department of public works and infrastructure (DPWI) to avail their sites to be used for quarantine purposes when the country goes into level 3 lockdown from Monday.

“These properties were empty due to lockdown regulations and therefore had no guests and we want to thank them for their offers,” said Public Works Minister Patricia De Lille during her address at Friday’s economic cluster briefing.

“In terms of the regulations, the DPWI’s role is to identify and make quarantine sites available, and the department of health (DoH) assesses and confirms a facility as a quarantine site once the department establishes that it meets their criteria. Our task was to identify quarantine sites in all 44 districts and eight metros,” explained De Lille.

According to the minister, once a facility is confirmed as a quarantine site, DoH will operationalise the site and it will be activated and procured by DPWI when the site is needed.

In order to meet the estimated capacity demand, the DPWI had to engage all provincial Public Works departments and local governments to ensure that they were able to identify possible quarantine sites in cases where there were no DPWI-owned properties available.

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“As level 3 starts on Monday, 1 June 2020, we would like to update the media and public and on the DPWI’s state of readiness with quarantine sites, as the infection rate is expected to increase with millions of people returning to work on Monday.

“DPWI has been working on all fronts over the past two months to ensure that we are ready for all eventualities and the worst-case scenario by having enough quarantine facilities available as the need arises and should the number of people who need to be quarantined increase dramatically,” said the minister.

To date, a total of 1,751 facilities have been identified as proposed sites representing more than 129,600 beds across the country, for the identified districts and metros.

“Of these 1,751 facilities, 642 are state-owned facilities and 1,109 are privately-owned.

“In the Western Cape for example, which is currently the epicentre of the virus, there are 358 facilities that have been identified representing more than 27,500 beds. Some of these sites have been assessed and confirmed as compliant and been activated, and the department of health is in the process of assessing the remainder of the sites.”

De Lille went on to explain that in addition to state-owned and private facilities, there are also sites from state-owned entities (SOEs) such as the Transnet and Eskom facilities. These sites have been activated and will be managed by the SOEs themselves.

Similarly, the provincial public sector sites that have been set up and activated by government will be managed by the respective provincial governments of the regions they fall in.

“With these numbers, we can assure South Africans of the DPWI’s state of readiness to have enough quarantine facilities available as the need arises with an expected increase in infections and repatriations. The DPWI’s state of readiness will be improved as more sites are assessed and confirmed by DoH,” added De Lille.

In order to service the anticipated spike in infections, various hospitals in provinces such as the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal have been earmarked for refurbishment.

According to De Lille, 32 hospitals have been identified for refurbishment in the Eastern Cape while 19 hospitals are currently undergoing refurbishment in KZN.

Ten sites have been identified for field hospitals in Mpumalanga and the province is currently busy with technical assessments.

“In the Western Cape, the CTICC has been completed as a field hospital site, and other sites have been identified and are being considered to be converted to field hospitals. In the North West, teams are focusing on augmenting the capacity of existing hospitals by constructing additional structures. The remaining provinces are still in the process of finalizing their plans for field hospitals.”

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