As cumulative cases in Gauteng rose to 93 044, accounting for 35.2% of the national total, health minister Zweli Mkhize announced that additional beds were being added to all hospitals in the province to meet rising demand.
Admissions were ‘rising very fast’, and, while hospitals had not yet reached full capacity for non-intensive care unit beds, they were ‘under pressure’.
He was quoted by News24 as saying: ‘What we are now seeing is the numbers have started building up to a large degree, more patients are coming to hospital; as a result, the beds that we have are under pressure.’
Mkhize said an additional 250 beds would be added to each hospital to match the daily number of admissions. A further 2 000 field hospital beds would be added to different hospitals in the province.
In addition, triage tents had also been set up at hospitals to assess patients immediately. Unconfirmed cases would be kept in the triage tents until their status was confirmed. Patients with confirmed infections would be taken into the hospital for treatment.
Gauteng Health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku explained that the triage tents were equipped to deliver intensive care treatment, including oxygen and intravenous treatment.
Positive cases rose yesterday by 13 497 to a cumulative total of 264 184 (with 127 715 recoveries). Deaths rose by 111 – 38 in the Western Cape, 30 in the Eastern Cape, 26 in Gauteng, 13 in KwaZulu-Natal and 4 in the Northern Cape – to 3 971.
After Gauteng, the Western Cape has the next highest cumulative tally of cases, at 77 336 or 29,3% of the national total, followed by the Eastern Cape (48 232 or 18.3%).
In other virus-related news
- Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has recommended that coronavirus drugs and the eventual vaccine should be made available to countries and people needing them most, arguing that relying on market forces to determine availability would only prolong the pandemic. He said: ‘If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of to the people and the places where they are most needed, we’ll have a longer, more unjust, deadlier pandemic’;
- It was reported that hospitals in Panama were on the brink of collapse as cases spiked in the Central American country worst hit by the pandemic. Panama has gone from 200 cases a day to 1 100 a day in a matter of weeks;
- California announced that it would release up to 8 000 more prisoners to reduce the spread of the virus in crowded jails. The inmates could be eligible for early release by the end of August, joining 10 000 prisoners already freed in similar initiatives since the start of the crisis; and
- Globally, the number of cases passed 12.5 million, with the death toll rising to at least 560 425. The United States is the hardest-hit, with 134 097 deaths, followed by Brazil (70 398), Britain (44 650), Italy (34 938) and Mexico (34 191).