President Cyril Ramaphosa announced South Africa’s Coronavirus hotspots on Sunday and Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, and Cape Town were all named.
A Coronavirus hotspot is defined as an area that has more than five infected people per every 100 000 people or where new infections are increasing at a fast pace.
Other areas that have been identified as hotspots are the West Coast, Overberg and Cape Winelands district municipalities in the Western Cape, the Chris Hani District in the Eastern Cape, and the iLembe District in KwaZulu-Natal.
Enhance Measures for Hotspots
“We are putting in place enhanced measures of surveillance, infection control and management. We will assign a full-time team of experienced personnel to each hotspot,” the President said.
This team will include
- Epidemiologists
- Family Practitioners
- Nurses
- Community Health Workers
- Public Health Experts
- Emergency Medical Services, supported by Cuban experts.
President Ramaphosa said each hotspot will be directly linked to the following facilities
- testing services
- isolation facilities
- quarantine facilities
- treatment
- hospital beds and contact tracing
About the hotspots, the President cautioned saying, “Should it be necessary, any part of the country could be returned to alert levels 4 or 5 if the spread of infection is not contained despite our interventions and there is a risk of our health facilities being overwhelmed,”
The President has expressed particular concern for the City of Cape Town in the Western Cape which currently has more than half the total infections in the country. “We are attending to this as a matter of urgency,” he said.
President Ramaphosa said that the government appreciates the work that continues to be done by public servants, especially those in the front line in the fight against COVID-19.
“Our priority is to reduce the opportunities for the transmission of the virus and create a safe environment for everyone,” he said.
The list of hotspot areas will be reviewed every two weeks depending on how the virus progresses.
