Gauteng is quickly becoming South Africa’s COVID-19 hotspot
Gauteng’s infections have almost doubled, from 17,261 to 31,344 and the province now faces a major increase in fatalities, the Sunday Times reports.
Citing modelling data from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the paper said that Gauteng’s fatalities – which reached 149 on Friday – could potentially triple every two weeks.
Commenting on the data, Wits University health economist, professor Alex van den Heever, said Gauteng will reach the Western Cape’s 24-hour death figure – around 50 deaths a day – within the next two weeks.
He further cautioned that while Gauteng might have a smaller number of cases overall, at 1,500 daily infections, its new cases now exceed the 1,400 daily infections in the Western Cape.
This was reiterated by Wits University vaccinologist professor Shabir Madhi, who told the Sunday Times that within three weeks, Gauteng will match the Western Cape’s current case numbers.
There are also concerns that the province is not as well prepared for an influx in coronavirus cases as the Western Cape is. There are five quarantine sites in the province, while no field hospitals have been built and the shortage of beds is expected to reach 5,000 in two weeks.
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