Faizel Patel – 09/12/2020
The Health Department has confirmed that South Africa is now experiencing a second wave of COVID-19.
In a statement the department says that four provinces including the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng Province are the key drivers of this new Coronavirus wave.
Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize says the majority of new cases today are from Western Cape (30%) followed by Eastern Cape (24%) then KwaZulu-Natal which accounted for 23%; and Gauteng accounted for 17%.
Mkhize says the Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West each accounted for 1% of new cases respectively while Northern Cape accounted for less than 1%
“It is important as well to highlight that today we have breached 6,000 in terms of new cases and the total new cases today identified is 6 709 thus giving us a total of 828 598 cumulative cases today.”
Mkhize says having observed the trends in the past couple of weeks, the department had already sent a letter to MEC’s of all provinces urging them to prepare their respective provinces for a second wave.
“The key issues that we have raised are that the provinces need to ensure that testing turnaround times are as quick as possible to facilitate patient flow, assess bed capacity including recalling field hospital beds, attend to staffing and equipment needs urgently and to tighten up monitoring and evaluation and reporting to national department.”
Meanwhile the Health Ministry says one hundred and thirty five more people have died in South Africa after contracting the coronavirus.
These latest fatalities bring the national death toll to 22,574.
The recovery rate is at 91.1%, meaning that so far, more than 754,658 people have recuperated.
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