Eastern Cape in race to avoid formation of ‘superclusters’ as Covid-19 infection rate climbs
The Eastern Cape is racing to prevent the formation of “superclusters” of infections in the province as the number of patients testing positive for coronavirus infections grows each day.In a presentation to President Cyril Ramaphosa, Premier of the Eastern Cape Oscar Mabuyane has admitted that the province has only 66 ICU and high care beds available — field hospitals and more than half of their isolation facilities are still in the planning phase.
The two big metros in the province currently have an incident rate of 558 per million for Buffalo City around East London and 469 per million for Nelson Mandela Bay. The Chris Hani District, that includes Cradock and Queenstown and many other small rural towns, has an incidence rate of 243 per million, according to a presentation on the state of the province provided by Mabuyane’s office.
Mabuyane said an investment of R50.5-million is targeted to improve 29 health facilities and R251-million to increase the bed capacity of hospitals in five districts while R3m is being invested into the hospitality sector in order to support the quarantining programme. “The total contingent liabilities in respect of medico-legal claims is now sitting at over R29-billion, more than the department’s total 2020/21 budget allocation of R26.4-billion. Given the above, the department of health has reached the point where it is factually insolvent.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, the province had an unemployment rate of 39.5%. Mabuyane said he expected this to worsen as “some businesses close and some [will not be] functioning as usual with the informal sector being especially hard hit”.
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