The beach was packed to capacity on Boxing Day, which is one of the biggest beach days of the year in the Western Cape. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
Cape Town - There is a mixed bag of news for the Western Cape on the Covid-19 front as the province continues to witness high case numbers, driven by the Omicron variant, but is also anticipating a plateauing of cases in the fourth wave.
Addressing the final provincial update of the year on the Covid-19 situation and the vaccination programme, provincial head of Health Dr Keith Cloete said that overall the number of new cases remained high at 4 000 new cases a day on average.
“However, we are starting to see the plateauing of new cases with the proportion of tests coming back positive starting to decline. This points to a slowing down of the fourth wave in the Western Cape, as we approach our peak.
“Given the numerous public holidays over this period, we need to caution against making a decisive call over what is expected over the next week, and we will closely monitor the cases to determine if this trend continues.”
On Tuesday, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases reported that the number of new Covid-19 cases in the Western Cape had overtaken those in Gauteng, which has seen a steep decrease in cases, to put the province in second place behind KwaZulu-Natal.
KZN had 28% of the new cases, the Western Cape 25% and Gauteng 22%.
Meanwhile, with only 46.2% of the province’s adult population fully vaccinated and only 6 183 vaccinations administered in the Western Cape in the 24 hours between midday on Tuesday and midday yesterday (Wednesday), Premier Alan Winde pleaded with the public to get vaccinated in greater numbers.
“In our hospitals at the moment we have got more than 1 500 people with Covid-19. When we analyse the cases, 82% of those in hospital are unvaccinated.
“Definitely you can see that the vaccine offers protection from severe illness and death.”
Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said that a significantly increased burden of alcohol-related trauma injury presenting to health facilities, particularly over the New Year's holiday, would not only impact emergency-care facilities but also health workers.
She said that if many health workers fell ill with the virus via trauma cases, then the whole health system would be under threat.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za