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Free State government concerned about surge in COVID-19 infections

COVID-19
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The Free State Department of Health is concerned about the surge in COVID-19 infections in the province. By Thursday morning, the province had recorded 12 332 infections with a recovery rate of only 15 %.

The spike in infections has seen increased numbers of people going to testing sites.  The Free State Department of Health says the increasing number of healthcare workers who are testing positive for the coronavirus is exacerbating the situation.

There have also been several protests by health care workers over shortages of protective gear among other concerns.

Recoveries in the province a concern 

The Department of Health in the province admits that there is a huge challenge with recoveries.

“In the last 14 days we’ve had 9 308 cases and before the minister announced, you’d probably remember that we were monitoring people for 14 days recovery, so what I’m saying is that we have 9 000 active cases as a province. And that means even if the 3 000 was to be reported in terms of recoveries, our recoveries would still be low. We’ve seen this in the Western Cape and we’ve seen this in the Eastern Cape. What we also have as a department is a backlog of numbers of recoveries and that backlog is just over 1000 and that’s what we are dealing with as a department,” says the provincial Department of Health COVID-19 surveillance team head Dr. Sam Mokoena.

Residents are also going out in large numbers to screen and test.

“I’m here to check myself honestly because I know a lot of people that have coronavirus. So I don’t want to be infected. I want to be safe, so I urge everyone to be safe and get tested,” says one of the residents.

Below is the breakdown of the latest coronavirus stats in SA: 

 

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