Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has called on residents to remain vigilant and continue to adhere to COVID-19 safety protocols, in order to prevent a second wave of infections.
The province reached the peak of its first wave of cases in July and case numbers and fatalities have continued to stabilise since then.
Winde has urged citizens to make the management of COVID-19 a habit that they continue to practice in their daily lives.
Speaking online during his weekly digital media conference, he called on the public to act responsibly in order to avert a second wave, which could result in more deaths and more job losses.
“If we know that we are doing the right thing, that we are continuously making management of COVID-19 a habit as something that we do ordinarily, understanding that where we see congestion, we know that that’s a risk. Understanding that if we follow the golden rules and understanding that as citizens and government we have a deal, we’ll work together to make sure that we avert a second wave.”
Statistics in the province
The Western Cape Department of Health says it has not seen any sharp increases in COVID-19 cases in the province over the last week. Public Health Medicine Specialist at the Department, Professor Mary-Ann Davies, says the province recorded an average of 190 new cases per day over seven days up until Monday.
The average for the previous week was around 230 cases per day. The province has recorded around 117 000 positive COVID-19 cases so far with around 110 000 recoveries. Davies was also speaking during the digicon.
“We haven’t seen any further increase in case numbers, but they haven’t come down yet to the late September levels. Hospitalisations and mortalities also remain stable although we will be watching the private sector hospitalisations very carefully. We are also very carefully tracking any increases in specific geographic areas and responding to those.”
Western Cape’s response to the pandemic
The Western Cape’s Disaster Management Team says it will continue to provide operational support to provincial COVID-19 programmes throughout the duration of the pandemic. The team has been instrumental in managing the province’s response to the coronavirus.
Quarantine and isolation programmes as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid are some of the responses which are co-ordinated by the team.
Disaster Management Chief Director, Colin Diener, says they will remain on standby to deal with any resurgence in cases.
“We would work on things like the whole quarantine and isolation process, from when a person is identified and has to go through the whole process was managed by the Disaster Risk Management Centre. Also the Red Dot Transport system, our media room, we converted that into an operational room for transport and public works. They also had eyes on all the transport nodes in the province where we could pick up incidents that were taking place.”
The Western Cape currently has around 3 100 active COVID-19 cases. The province has to date recorded around 117 000 positive cases, with just under 110 000 recoveries.
Nearly 4 400 people have died from the virus in the province while more than 687 000 tests have been conducted.
Below are the latest coronavirus stats in SA:
Loading…
