The Gauteng government is preparing itself for the second wave as more positive Covid-19 coronavirus cases are expected to hit the province.
With people travelling back into the province in the next couple of weeks, it is expected that there will be more cases in the mining areas in the West Rand.
On Tuesday morning, Premier David Makhura expressed concern about the statistics, which revealed that Gauteng was now the province with the second highest number of cases.
As of Monday night, Gauteng had 50 000 active cases. KwaZulu-Natal currently had the most cases and the Western Cape had the third highest number of infections.
The positivity rate was at 6% in early December and is currently at 30%.
There have been 123% more deaths taking place in Gauteng from December to the first week January.
“If you just look at Gauteng, the highest daily infections we had in the peak of the first wave was 6 531. In the last four days, the rate of increase has surpassed the highest daily rates we had in the first wave,” he said.
Makhura explained that, while the regulations under level 3 have not yet yielded major results, scientists have said that it might take some time.
“Given the fact that Gauteng is in the midst of the second wave, we want to build on the level 3 regulations.”
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He did, however, say that assessments had shown that there had been a 48.5% decrease in the number of road accidents in Gauteng since the alcohol ban was reintroduced under level 3.
Makhura says crime has also decreased, but gender-based violence continues to be a problem in communities.
Some of the measures which will be implemented to ensure that the province is able to deal with the second wave is increasing the number of beds and retaining the healthcare professionals who were employed when the virus first broke out.
The Gauteng provincial command council has urged government to make funds available to extend the contracts of healthcare personnel.
Meanwhile, ActionSA has slammed the provincial government, saying that they are “woefully unprepared” to deal with the second wave.
The party issued a statement after Makhura’s briefing, saying that government should have presented a clear plan to increase the capacity of healthcare facilities.
“The picture that is beginning to emerge is that the Gauteng provincial government has failed dismally to ready itself for a spike of infections, which was foreseeable in the province in the beginning of 2021,” the party said.
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