Premier Alan Winde has announced that the Western Cape has passed the peak of the 4th wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, categorised by the omicron variant.
“Throughout this time, our health platform maintained sufficient capacity to respond. We did not need to open all our field hospital wards, and we maintained our COVID-19 critical care capacity throughout this period, including at our peak,” Winde said.
“Our oxygen usage increases, which is the most robust measure for COVID-19 hospital capacity, did not exceed 50%, which meant that even at our peak we remained on our own lowest trigger level,” he further noted.
The premier also criticised the extension of the State of Disaster. “The national government has had more than enough time to put in place alternative management systems outside of a disaster declaration,” he expressed and further added that the public and the economy cannot wait any longer – with emphasis on the second pandemic – the job crisis in South Africa.
“We do not need the National State of Disaster, which is an extreme tool imposed with the primary intention of protecting our health platform. It must be allowed to expire by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma,” he expressed.
“The Western Cape has already passed the peak of the fourth wave, and we will have exited the fourth wave entirely once we have approximately 600 new cases per day based on the 7-day moving average of cases,” he furthered.
Winde mentioned that the decreases in daily case numbers are starting to decrease to an average of 52% and admissions have plateaued with 225 admissions per day.
Despite deaths on the rise since mid-December, Winde notes that “our data scientists have received a large import of data on deaths from the National Department of Home Affairs which had been backlogged, totalling 150 deaths. This has increased our daily death average; however, when allocating these deaths by day, over time, the absolute death numbers throughout the fourth wave have remained low.”
“The Provincial Department of Health’s analysis of the fourth wave shows us that there is a widening in the gap between cases, admissions, and deaths if we compare the third wave and fourth wave.
“This means that while case numbers and test positivity in this wave have exceeded previous waves, hospital admissions are lower than the previous wave at 64% of the third wave admissions peak. Further, while deaths have increased in the last 2 weeks, they stand at just 24% of the third wave peak. This is very positive and can be attributed to increased protection from the vaccine, immunity from prior infection, as well as emerging evidence that omicron may be less severe.”
Winde praised the fact that patients are been discharged faster than they are being admitted – which he largely attributes to the local government’s 6-point resurgence plan in fourth wave anticipations.
Picture: Cape {town} Etc
