KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala says the province is facing a challenge in unallocated coronavirus cases. This as Zikalala announced that the province has recorded 19 706 new COVID-19 cases, 136 new deaths, and 5 034 additional recoveries.
The Premier was speaking during a weekly media briefing in Durban.
Zikalala says the growing number of private laboratories poses a challenge in the province as they do not keep proper records.
KZN remains the fourth worst affected province in the country, contributing 21% of new cases.
Below is a provincial breakdown of COVID-19 cases in SA:
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Zikalala says Ethekwini and Umgungundlovu districts remain the epicentre of the province, recording more than half of the daily cases.
“As of yesterday (Saturday), KwaZulu-Natal has had 37 287 positive cases, of which 26 262 were still active cases. Sadly, we had 121 new deaths this week, bringing our toll to 401. We also had 2 113 new cases and 10 624 recoveries.”
Zikalala says the growing number of private laboratories pose a challenge in the province.
“The mushrooming of private laboratories continues to be a challenge in the province. People do not complete demographic details of patients; including residential address, telephone numbers and facility needs as a result the province is experiencing an increase in unallocated cases.”
Effects of alcohol ban
President Cyril Ramaphosa last Sunday announced a renewed ban on alcohol sales under Level 3 of the lockdown. This was to relieve pressure on hospitals as the peak in the COVID-19 pandemic approaches.
Zikalala says Ramaphosa made a correct move.
“Since this announcement, our primary analysis indicates that this decision was correct. We are already starting to see some signs of the easing of pressure from our trauma accident and emergency units in hospitals as well as mortuary admission of people who have died due to violent causes.”
Provincial Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu says a health and safety committee has been appointed at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital following the surge in the number of infected healthcare workers, with over 300 healthcare workers being infected.
“Do they need to have a committee that’s going to be responsible for the health and safety of the workers and the responsibility of that part of that committee? And it includes all the stakeholders within the facility. It is to ensure that they walk about on a daily basis on the hourly basis, make sure that everyone has the proper PPE on and everyone is utilizing. The people we are cooperating with decided in the province that we are going to have a couple of teams that are going to be of health workers that will go where there is a shortage and they will be moving around as and when there’s a need. So we’re going to start with that because Albert seems to be one facility that is mostly affected.”
Zikalala has reiterated the call to practice social distancing and the wearing of masks in public to help curb the rapid spread of the virus.
In the video below, KZN PCCC briefs the media on the latest statistics in the province:
