Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has expressed concerns about the climbing number of COVID-19 cases in the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape provinces.<\/p>\n
Outlining the pandemic health response and South Africa\u2019s readiness to deal with a possible resurgence on Sunday, Mkhize said his department is now watching the two provinces closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is to indicate now that we have started seeing a little increasing activity in the Eastern Cape and a little bit in the Western Cape,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
However, he told the media that it could not be described as a new surge just yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re basically, saying we\u2019re observing these areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mkhize held a COVID-19 briefing outlining the health response to the pandemic and South Africa\u2019s readiness to deal with a possible resurgence.<\/p>\n
Resurgence plan<\/strong><\/p>\n Government\u2019s resurgence plan, working together with the World Health Organisation (WHO), involves heightening surveillance, intensifying resources and scaling up testing and contract tracing.<\/p>\n It also involves cases management, availability of beds, enabling quarantine and isolation, and managing hotspots.<\/p>\n Mkhize said he will be visiting the Eastern Cape and will announce further interventions as the Nelson Mandela Bay area is still in the red.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cluster outbreaks do not mean the whole country is going to go into a resurgence immediately if we manage it well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Healthcare professionals<\/strong><\/p>\n The Minister announced that 35 490 healthcare workers have been infected with COVID-19, while those admitted were 4 368.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, 338 lost their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cMay their souls rest in peace,\u201d he expressed his condolences, adding that government is doing everything to protect healthcare workers.<\/p>\n Precaution<\/strong><\/p>\n Mkhize said it was important to adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as washing hands, sanitising, social distancing and wearing masks.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more important now as before,\u201d he said, adding that the country needs a sustained behavioural change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re now seeing people showing fatigue and so on. It’s difficult to have enforcement of masks unless it\u2019s a social mobilisation we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Government is also working on social behavioural campaigns to try encouraging people to keep safe during the festive season.<\/p>\n \u201cThe day to day festivities need to be done differently and it\u2019s important to start gearing ourselves to a slightly different Christmas. I\u2019m not talking about the lockdown, I\u2019m talking about changing the way we do it so that we don\u2019t go enjoy and end up with an infection.\u201d<\/p>\n He also called on citizens to avoid super-spreader activities where people \u201ccluster together\u201d without any precautions. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has expressed concerns about the climbing number of COVID-19 cases in the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape provinces. Outlining the pandemic health response and South Africa\u2019s readiness to deal with a possible resurgence on Sunday, Mkhize said his department is now watching the two provinces closely. \u201cThis is to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-172179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}