Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize confirmed during a media briefing this evening, 1 April that 1 380 positive Covid-19 cases had been confirmed, an increase of 27 since yesterday’s announcement.
The numbers by province are as follows:
Gauteng – 645
Western Cape – 326
Free State – 76
KwaZulu Natal – 186
Northern Cape – 7
North West – 9
Eastern Cape – 15
Mpumalanga – 12
Limpopo – 14
Although some 44 202 people had been tested, Mkhize expressed concern at the low number of tests in the public sector, which he said was just over 6 000.
“Although this number seems high, it is still too low for the kinds of challenges that South Africa faces.”
He added that for this reason, the Department of Health had unveiled 60 new mobile laboratory vans, in addition to the 7 already in use. These, he said, would increase the capacity in the public sector to about 30 000 tests in 24 hours, across 180 sites throughout the country, hopefully by next week.
Mkhize noted the slower increase in the number of positive Covid-19 cases over the past few days, which he attributed to the following factors:
• The closure of borders
• Enforced quarantine of inbound travellers and returning citizens
• The lockdown
He also expressed his concern at the reactive and restrictive nature of testing processes.
“Because of this, we do not have a true picture of the size of the problem. We must test many more people in order to truly understand the scale of the problem, and to plan a way forward.”
Mkhize said the ideal would be to get to a point where there was an offensive rather than a defensive strategy – whereby healthcare workers identified areas where there may be infections, and tested and treated before it became an issue.
He concluded by saying that the country’s success in fighting Covid-19 depended on the country’s citizens, and not the virus itself.
“We can still fight this infection and defeat it. It depends on us, it does not depend on Covid-19.”
