Worries are mounting in the Eastern Cape over a provincial command council report that says the province could see as many as 6 000 Covid-19 deaths in the months to come.
The report anticipates infections to peak in the province between October and November.
News24 reported that the report also reveals that the province does not have sufficient capacity to manage the expected virus-related demands.
The provincial report is quoted as saying: ‘If the modelling is correct the Eastern Cape is at the start of an exponential increase in deaths over the next three months. Based on the projections the cumulative death toll could be between 5 500 and 6 000.
‘These peaks could be reached between October and November. This would require that infrastructure and support services would have to be put in place as a matter of urgency to deal with potential situations.’
It cautions that ‘it would appear that the E-Cape does not have enough capability in place to manage the demand of the pandemic. Unless capabilities are exponentially and rapidly increased, the province will experience a situation where the demand will exceed supply’.
Nationally, coronavirus deaths rose by 82 to 1 162 – 61 in the Western Cape, 11 in the Eastern Cape and 10 in Gauteng. There are now 52 991 recorded infections, with 29 006 recoveries.
Business Insider reported that more than 697 000 special Covid-19 Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) applications – worth R3 billion – failed last month because employees were not registered by the companies they worked for.
The Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) applications for 697 418 employees were from more than 113 000 businesses.
Said Makhosonke Buthelezi, director of communication and marketing at the UIF: ‘For us to pay any claim we must find the employee on our system and it is the employer’s duty to declare the employee to us.’
It is reported that the UIF has paid out more than R20 billion in TERS payments to 3.5 million workers since the start of April. Workers eligible for TERS payments are those who have been put on leave or laid off temporarily, or whose employers can’t afford to pay their full salaries due to the coronavirus crisis.
In other virus-related news
- Researchers at the Global Policy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, say in a new study that lockdown measures have been effective, according to a BBC report. The laboratory examined the effects of more than 1 700 different lockdown measures across six countries: the US, China, South Korea, Italy, France, and Iran. The restrictions analysed included travel bans, school closures, suspended religious services, event cancellations, and shelter-in-place orders. The study found that, without any limits to people’s movement and interaction in the US, the number of infections would have doubled every two days from 3 March to 6 April, meaning that some 60 million more people could have been infected. The US has so far reported 1.9 million cases; and
- AFP reported that the virus had claimed the lives of at least 406 466 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December. At least 7 130 550 cases have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 3 124 800 are now considered recovered. The United States ranks as the worst-hit country, with 111 007 deaths from 1 961 185 cases. At least 518 522 people have been declared recovered. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Britain with 40 597 deaths from 287 399 cases, Brazil with 37 134 deaths from 707 412 infections, Italy with 33 964 deaths from 235 278 cases, and France with 29 209 deaths from 191 185 cases.