By Grace Audu (HEALTH CORRESPONDENT) –
Stakeholders in South African’s health sector are meeting on Saturday to decide new lockdown restrictions as country continues to be hard-hit by the coronavirus (CPVID-19) pandemic.
Acting health minister Mammoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, who confirmed this morning, said she would be meeting with the government’s Covid-19 Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) to discuss further lockdown restrictions.
Kubayi-Ngubane, who was briefing the media on the new wave of COVID-19, said that the MAC has already submitted its recommendations, with the meeting set to focus on the concerns that it has raised and the interventions that need to be made at a national and provincial level.
Co-chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19, Professor Koleka Mlisana, said that tighter restrictions are likely needed to help curb infections.
Mlisana told eNCA that government will look at the current restrictions that are in place and determine how the public is responding to them. It will also look at what other restrictions are needed to help turn things around.
The MAC co-chair said that the other big crisis is ensuring that there are enough hospital beds in Gauteng. This includes additional facilities, staffing members and beds to ensure the system is not overwhelmed, she said.
She said that government did not adequately prepare, despite warnings from the advisory committees. This is a failure by the provincial department of health as it did not prepare when it should have.
Hybrid lockdown
Health experts in Gauteng say that a move to level 5 lockdown will be too damaging for the province – but an increase in restrictions to somewhere between level 3 and level 4 may be necessary.
Dr Mary Kawonga, chair of the Premier’s Advisory Committee (PAC), said that the rapid increase in cases in recent days ‘is very worrying’ and that further lockdown levels may need to be necessary.
Kawonga said that there needs to be a balance between the economy and livelihoods and that a level 5 hard lockdown would likely be too harmful.
She said that it was also too late in the wave for a hard lockdown to have the necessary impact. Instead, she said Gauteng’s health experts have recommended a move to a hybrid between level 3 and level 4 lockdown.
This could include further restrictions on the sale of alcohol. While an outright ban is bad for the economy, she said that it may be possible to ban sales over the weekend. Alcohol sales are already restricted in the country over the weekend, with the sale of alcohol for off-site consumption only permitted between 10h00 – 18h00 from Monday to Thursday.
However, alcohol sales for on-site consumption are still allowed according to licence conditions, which includes sales over the weekend.
Ultimately, the decision to introduce more stringent measures lies with the national government, said Kawonga.
(With a report by BUSINESSTECH)