Gauteng buckles under infections

A scary period is imminent for Gauteng as the province expects a surge in new coronavirus cases, which is predicted to worsen very soon and very quickly.

The province has overtaken the Western Cape in daily infections as it now has the highest active coronavirus cases, tallying at 26,407 at the last count. The Western Cape stood at 15,411 active cases.

A month ago, Gauteng had 1,181 active cases while Western Cape was the highest at 7,998 active cases.

According to the Gauteng health department, 1,332 people were hospitalised in both private and public healthcare facilities as of Saturday. The looming spike in coronavirus cases could be due to several reasons, including Gauteng being densely populated, said Professor Francois Venter, divisional director of Ezintsha, a subdivision of Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Institute.

He said another reason could be the bizarre pattern of respiratory diseases firstly infecting the Western Cape before hitting Gauteng and other provinces.

“Gauteng is much bigger than the Western Cape in population as a quarter of the entire country’s population is in Gauteng. The virus spreads easier when people are closer together.

“Some respiratory viruses tend to hit the Western Cape a few weeks before the rest of the country. We don’t understand why but that has been a pattern for a long time. It is sadly predictable. It will
be a lot worse [for Gauteng] quite quickly and it’s a very scary period,” Venter said.

Kwara Kekana, department spokesperson, said yesterday the number of hospitalised coronavirus patients has increased in the last two weeks, resulting in a high demand for oxygen and ventilators.

“As more Covid-19 cases are reported, the number of admissions and bed occupancy rate or critical patients has increased which put more pressure on ventilators, oxygen points and oxygen supplies,” she said.

She added the spike in confirmed cases in the province could be due to cluster infections in the mines in Merafong and the relaxation of lockdown regulations.

“The cluster infections in the mines in Merafong have resulted in a surge in cases affecting other parts of the West Rand. This could also account for some of the cases in Johannesburg. The impact of the relaxation of the lockdown cannot be excluded, especially Level 3, during which most of the new cases emerged,” she told The Citizen.

But businesses such as hair salons and restaurants are able to operate without posing serious risk. The area of most concern is the public transport sector, Venter said.

“I am worried about public transport. There hasn’t been nearly enough effort to help the industry. We are not certain of this but it looks like healthcare workers are infected on their way to and from work or from the tea room and not necessarily from patients.

“The hard discussion to have is to keep people safe who are forced to use public transport,” he said.

SA Medical Association chairperson Dr Angelique Coetzee warned Gauteng had a substantial number of densely inhabited informal settlements and noted there were three effective ways of preventing spreading the disease: social distancing, masks and hand washing.

“If you look at the social distancing part – in lower – income places where people live in small rooms and houses and there are lots of people in the house, the 1.5m distance is difficult,” Coetzee said.

Coetzee said the prediction was, in two to three weeks, there would be a lot of problems.

“We are already running into problems in hospitals where they can’t sustain the patients who have Covid-19,” Coetzee said. “Also, half of the healthcare workers are infected and it’s a
mess.”

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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