Pandemic-weary doctors were at times forced to choose between a sick patient with coronavirus and an emergency case of somebody bleeding from alcohol-related trauma, Mkhize said.
In few other countries in the world have COVID-19 and alcohol consumption become so dangerously intertwined.
It also typically ranks among the countries with the highest per-capita alcohol consumption -- a phenomenon, partly fuelled by easy availability of drink, that also carries a high medical cost.The staggering scale of that bill was brought home after South Africa imposed a rare moratorium on alcohol sales, to go hand-in-hand with a virus lockdown on March 27.
The renewed ban should free up just under 50,000 beds in public hospitals over the next eight weeks, according to Charles Parry, director of South Africa Medical Research Council's alcohol research unit.
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