South Africans can expect the numbers of confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the country to continue to rise as government intensifies its screening and testing programme. That’s according to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, who gave a virtual media briefing on Saturday night.
The COVID-19 death toll now stands at 52 in South Africa and the number of confirmed positive cases is 3 034. Out of the 2 079 active cases in the country, 36 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with 26 of them on ventilators.
In total 241 patients have been admitted to hospital.
Mkhize says in recent days, close to 900 000 people have been screened and around 11 000 people have been sent for testing.
“We will find more people who are turning positive because of the fact that we are going all out to fetch people in the community who would have not presented themselves to come to the hospital. So we have recorded at this point close to 900 000 people who have been screened and out of those, we have got probably about 11 000 people who have been referred for testing. This is just in the past couple of days. We have to keep pushing the numbers.”
In the video below, Minister Mkhize briefs the media on the status of COVID-19 in South Africa:
Measures to strengthen SA’s response to COVID-19
On Saturday, President Cyril Ramaphosa chaired a virtual meeting of the President’s Coordinating Council (PCC), to discuss measures to strengthen and intensify the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The PCC agreed on the need for a risk-adjusted approach to the resumption of economic activity at the completion of the lockdown period.
This would require the gradual easing of regulations in various sectors, which will be guided by available evidence which supports the ongoing containment of COVID-19.
The PCC has agreed to ramp up water provision across the country. They also discussed the available capacity at quarantine sites and hospitals.
Further inputs were also made for Cabinet’s consideration when it meets on Monday to discuss the need for an economic reconstruction plan.
COVID-19 stigma
A recovered COVID-19 patient from Knysna in the Western Cape on Saturday spoke about the stigma attached to the virus. Peter Myers was the first person in the Garden Route alongside his wife to be diagnosed with COVID-19 after returning from a trip overseas in March.
Myers said after their confidential medical records were leaked, the family faced criticism from some people in their community.
“We started getting posts on social media from a minority of people, we must be clear about that, accusing us of all sorts of horrendous acts like going to restaurants knowing that we were infected, mixing with other people knowing we were infected, infecting other people. And this is was not only hurtful to us but I felt extremely dangerous.”
In the video below, the Myers family talk about the stigma attached to COVID-19:
