This evening, as I stand here before you, our nation is confronted by the gravest crisis in the history of our democracy.For more than 120 days, we have succeeded in delaying the spread of a virus that is causing devastation across the globe.But now, the surge in infections that we had been advised by our medical experts would come, has arrived.More than a quarter of a million South Africans have been infected with coronavirus, and we know that many more infections have gone undetected.
Yet, while infections rise exponentially, it is important to note that our case fatality rate of 1.5% is among the lowest in the world.We owe the relatively low number of deaths in our country to the experience and dedication of our health professionals and the urgent measures we have taken to build the capacity of our health system which faced a number of its own inherent challenges before Covid-19.We must remember that the most important measure of success is the number of lives we save.
Then there are some of our people who see no problem attending funerals where the number of people in attendance exceed the number of 50 that has been set out in regulations.In some cases some people go to funerals where more than 1,000 people are in attendance.It is concerning that many are downplaying the seriousness of the virus, despite all evidence to the contrary and what we have cautioned on numerous occasions.
For this reason we must immediately improve the indoor environment of public places where the risk of infection is greatest. On the advice of health scientists and experts, our decision to declare a nationwide lockdown prevented a massive early surge of infections when our health services were less prepared, which would have resulted in a far greater loss of lives.
We have procured and delivered millions of items of personal protective equipment to hospitals, clinics and schools across the country to protect our frontline workers.We still have a serious shortage of more than 12,000 health workers, mostly nurses, doctors and physiotherapists. We continue to make progress in our efforts to deal with Covid-19, but our greatest challenge still lies ahead.We have heard of instances where people who are infected have been turned away from health facilities due to a lack of beds or essential supplies.It means we have to move with even greater urgency to strengthen our strategy to manage the peak of infections.
To deal with shortages of health personnel in some areas, we are employing more doctors and nurses and negotiating with health science faculties to deploy volunteers to provide medical, nursing, physiotherapy, pharmacy and general patient support.I have been extremely proud to see medical students volunteering at hospitals and clinics, exemplifying the highest values of the medical profession.We are working to reduce the turnaround time for testing to no more than 48 hours.
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