In the worst-case scenario when the fifth Covid-19 wave hits, Western Cape schools will be closed and stricter regulations imposed if 2 800 or more coronavirus patients are in hospital and 80% or more in high care.
Yesterday Premier Alan Winde outlined the province’s plan of action to limit the impact of the fifth wave of Covid-19 infections, likely to be driven a new variant Pi which was set to hit the Western Cape mid-May.
But Winde said the fourth wave did not even trigger level one of the action plan, when 10% of hospital beds in the province were occupied by Covid-19 patients and the oxygen use increases with 50%.
If that happens “we urgently change our message to the province. We will ask people to gather in more ventilated spaces and we will promote vaccinations on a much bigger scale”, said Winde.
The second level is when 20% of hospital beds were filled with coronavirus patients and the oxygen use surged with 75%. “We will limit non-essential indoor gatherings,” said Winde.
The third level is when Covid patients occupy 50% of hospital beds in ICUs and oxygen usage spiked to 100%. Winde said: “We will implement stern measures and mobilise all resources to support the substantial surge within a time frame of two days.”
The fourth level will be reached when 2 800 or more coronavirus patients are in hospital and 80% or more high-care beds are occupied by these patients. “We need to close schools and impose more stern restrictions,” Winde said.
He said he expected Pi to be more infections but less deadly.
On Saturday 6 527 new Covid cases were reported in the country of which Gauteng accounted for 43%, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 26% and Western Cape with 14%.
Winde said public compliance was waning because of pandemic fatigue. “I need you to isolate if you’re sick, you need to wear a mask so you don’t spread the virus if you’re infected – it doesn’t matter if you’re indoors or outdoors.”
Mass vaccination remains the central weapon, Winde said, adding that the Western Cape government does not condone the reinstatement of the national state of disaster. It should be the last resort since it’s a “pretty severe response”.
The national state of disaster, after nearly 700 days, came to an end on April 4. Winde said the provincial government had the necessary budget to combat this wave. “Our contingency reserve fund for Covid-19 is R200 million.
This was in addition to the R777m for the health platform and R198m for the roll-out of vaccination.
“We have R17m for communication, so we are going to spend more money on communication to inform citizens.”
Winde said currently only two Covid-19 field hospitals had patients, the Brackengate Hospital with 18 patients and the Sonstraal Hospital in the Cape Winelands with two patients.
“We monitor our hospitals and when they get to 50% capacity we then activate the next field hospital. It also depends on areas because we have field hospitals in different areas.”
On Friday Minister of Health Joe Phaahla, said the country may enter the fifth wave earlier than expected.
This comes after a rise in infections over the past two weeks that seems to be driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants.
As previously reported, leading epidemiologist Professor Salim Abdool Karim said the next wave of infections were expected to be driven by Pi.