“To determine the levels per district, the prevalence and incidence rates of each area should be calculated. However. this is currently not possible because of low testing rates and a lack of serological tests,” he said.<\/p>\n
To accommodate this, Mkhize said that the government will be taking more of a statistical approach.<\/p>\n
“In the absence of test coverage data, active cases and changes in active cases over 14 days will be used to determine the changes in rate of infection,” he said.<\/p>\n
“To determine an ‘area of vigilance’ (less than 5 cases per 100,000) and ‘hotspots’ (more than 5 cases per 100,000), the average active case data per 100,000 population was used for the period 16 May to 22 May.”<\/p>\n
To determine ’emerging hotspots’, Mkhize said that government will look at whether a district, which currently has fewer than 5 cases per 100,000 population, has seen a notable increase in cases over the 14 day period.<\/p>\n
Districts\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n As part of his presentation, Mkhize provided a list of districts across the country which have currently been defined as needing ‘vigilance’, are an ’emerging hotspot’ or are currently defined as a ‘hotspot’.<\/p>\n The latest data shows that 14 of South Africa’s 52 districts are considered hotspots, while nine have been identified as emerging hotspots.<\/p>\n Mkhize said that this is based on a number of active case per 100,000 between 16 May and 22 May.<\/p>\n His department calculated ‘the delta’ or new positive cases by subtracting the number of cases reported on 15 May from the reported cases on 22 May. It also calculated the % change in new positive cases between the same two days.<\/p>\n While this statistical model will provide an overview of the districts that are hardest hit by the coronavirus, Mkhize indicated that the country’s shortage of test kits was problematic<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n He added that in some cases ‘clinical judgement’ will have to be used by doctors to say that there is a ‘reasonable chance’ that a person is positive as the government can’t be delayed by a backlog in tests.<\/p>\n Interventions<\/strong><\/p>\n Mkhize said that while the whole country is moving to lockdown level 3, hotspot areas will be subject to further restrictions based on specific interventions.<\/p>\n In vigilance and emerging hotspot areas, government will prevent new infections and keep numbers low by establishing multisectoral, multi-department and community response teams to encourage various protocols.<\/p>\n This includes:<\/p>\n In hotspot areas, the districts will be sub-divided into ward clusters so that government can have a more targetted and rapid response.<\/p>\n This will include:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Hotspots-26-May-2020.png\")
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