The Western Cape surpassed Gauteng as the epicentre of the Covid-19 coronavirus in the past week, but Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has put a positive spin on this, saying it reflects the aggressive testing strategy put in place by the province
Lockdown: You can jog, but no cigarettes will be sold
“We knew upfront that we needed to do a lot of testing and we are pushing the testing hard. We are also doing the tracking and tracing quite aggressively. We are testing more than other places,” he said. Winde said that, although the Western Cape was home to 10% of the country’s population, 15% of the total amount of testing had been done in the province.
The Western Cape government has prepared 1 500 rooms in hospitals, hotels and resorts across the province to ensure that people in dense areas such as Khayelitsha are accommodated once the numbers start peaking. “We are 1 000 beds short for that peak and we are 750 ICU beds short. That is why it is critical to not allow the peak to get that high. This is how people in other parts of the world die,” he said.
“Our call centre could not deal with the calls, so we brought in another 200 operators. We were dealing with 14 500 calls per day,” the premier said.
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