Call in the medics: Beds don’t cure people - The Mail & Guardian

Nearly one million Covid-19 tests conducted, millions screened and tens of thousands testing positive. The pandemic in South Africa, after an initial slowdown in its spread, is finally taking on its natural progression and spreading rapidly. In the past week, on average more than 2 200 people tested positive from about 28 000 tests every day. The number of people testing positive has doubled in the past two weeks, to 55 000.

“China was able to contain the virus by extensively testing and tracing right from the start. They were aggressive with their contact tracing and isolating the contacts. This was always going to be a difficult goal for South Africa. A lockdown on its own was not going to contain the virus it needed to be coupled with extensive testing and contact tracing. But, unfortunately, that was not the case in South Africa,” said Madhi.

“The increase in infections shows that we are finally interacting with the baseline nature of the virus. What the other countries that have been able to manage the disease, which we have not been able to do very well, is the contact tracing and increasing screening everywhere. We need extensive contact tracing which will allow you to see the containment of the virus,” said Hamukoma.

She added: “Lockdown was necessary to improve the preparedness of hospitals for the anticipated wave of Covid-19 cases … We cannot scale up healthcare capacity in the same way China did at record speed, with hyperefficiency. Many healthcare workers are infected and some have died. So, while we may have additional hospital beds and ventilators and additional field hospitals, we may not have sufficient medical and nursing staff to cope.

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