Public hospitals are seeing a significant spike of Covid-19 admissions as the country stares at the possibility of sinking into the third wave by next week.
Chris Hani Baragranath Academic Hospital in Diepkloof, Soweto, and Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria have seen a 50% increase in admissions of patients who contracted the virus.
They have 116 and 73 hospitalised patients, respectively. Gauteng, Free State, Northern Cape and North West are already experiencing their third wave.
“Gauteng is at its peak of the third wave and that is evident in the huge increase of the patients we have admitted for Covid-19. We have 73 of them and last week we were in the 60s and week before we were in the 30s. That means we have to double our efforts to cater for other winter illnesses and trauma caused by alcohol-related incidents,” said Steve Biko CEO Dr Mathabo Mathebula on Thursday.
“Last time we had so many patients was in January, when we peaked at 155 patients. I see us reaching 90 patients by Monday as we still have patients waiting for their results. My major concern is staff falling sick,” said Mathebula.
The hospital now has 193 Covid-19 beds available.
Bara had 46 patients two weeks ago and that figure doubled by last week. Besides the current 116 patients, 57 people were still waiting for their results on Thursday, said acting CEO Dr Steve Mankupane.
He attributed the spike to mainly mental fatigue and gatherings.
“I drive about a lot in Soweto and I see a lot of people not wearing masks,” he said.
Ten days ago, Thembisa Hospital on the East Rand had 32 Covid-19 patients and now the figure stands at 47. Patients waiting for results rose from 15 to 27 over the same period. The hospital has 151 Covid-19 beds.
“We are under pressure. We are close to reaching our capacity. The challenge is that we still have the high burden of diseases,” said hospital acting CEO Dr Ashley Mthunzi.
SA is now hovering in the 29% mark. It has to reach the 30% threshold for a third wave to be declared.
On Wednesday, SA recorded more than 8,000 new daily infections, a figure it last reached during the second wave on January 24, when it had 8,147 new cases.
Gauteng, Free State, Northern Cape and North West are the current hotspots while Western Cape premier Alan Winde on Thursday said they were entering the third wave.
The other provinces — Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Limpopo — have also shown huge increases in positive cases over the past two weeks.
Dr Hazel Mufhandu, a virologist at the North West University, believes the country is already in its third wave.
“I do not know why some commentators and advisers are saying we are going into the third wave. We are in a winter season and we see the numbers going up on a daily basis. The wave is gradually increasing until it reaches a plateau, as we saw in the first and second waves. In the previous waves we reached 13,000 to 15,000 cases a day,” she said.
“People are fatigued and are not observing the protocols. This is what is pushing the numbers,” she said.
Prof Mosa Moshabela, deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation at UKZN, said the country had averaged 5,418 daily infections over the past seven days and needed to be at 5,600 cases (for seven consecutive days) for the third wave to be declared.
“Government needs to put us under lockdown level three as soon as we hit the third wave, which could be by next week. The proximity of the four provinces now in the third wave and the movements of its people is the main cause of what we are seeing now. We will have to ride out the third wave for about two months before it is over,” he said.
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