Western Cape likely to overtake Gauteng in Covid-19 cases, says provincial health department

The Western Cape department of health issued a warning on Thursday, predicting that the number of Covid-19 cases in the province was expected to overtake the number of Gauteng infection cases in the coming days, EyeWitness News reported.

Gauteng currently has 1,224 Covid-19 cases, which is the highest compared to other provinces, while the Western Cape stands at 1,079 cases with 22 deaths.

Speaking on Cape Talk Radio, the health department’s HOD, Dr Keith Cloete, more cases of the virus were expected to rise rapidly.

“We are picking up more cases, and we are expecting cases to rise. In all likelihood in the next two or three days, we will overtake Gauteng,” he said.

Cloete also warned of a rise in deaths in the province, saying the Western Cape was soon likely to overtake KwaZulu-Natal as the province recording the most deaths.

He explained that the province’s mass screening strategy involved the active seeking out of cases.

“We find a case, and then we explore every possible person that would have been in contact with that case, and we’re chasing up results. As a result, authorities are starting to find significant clusters of cases that they are able to relate specifically to places of gathering.

“Mainly these [clusters] have originated in a few supermarkets and in a few workplaces, and in two factories with actually quite big numbers of people,” he said.

On the deaths in the province, Cloete said that all of those who had succumbed to the disease had either been elderly, or had underlying co-morbidities.

“Many of the deaths that we have found are people that have hypertension and they have ischemic heart disease, and they have maybe a respiratory problem or a chest problem, or they also have diabetes,” he explained.

Cloete emphasised that Covid-19 along with other conditions or diseases placed the elderly at high risk of death.

The total number of Covid-19 cases in South Africa had reached 3,635, with an increase of 170, while the total number of tests conducted to date stands at 133,774, of which 6,868 were done in the past 24 hours.

Seven more Covid-19 related deaths were reported, bringing the number to 65.

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