{"id":405955,"date":"2020-06-09T07:56:51","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T05:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=405955"},"modified":"2020-06-09T07:56:51","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T05:56:51","slug":"south-africa-has-hit-a-major-coronavirus-milestone-these-are-joburg-and-cape-towns-hotspots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/405955\/south-africa-has-hit-a-major-coronavirus-milestone-these-are-joburg-and-cape-towns-hotspots\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa has hit a major coronavirus milestone – these are Joburg and Cape Town’s hotspots"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa reached a major coronavirus milestone on Monday (8 June), reporting over 50,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

Writing in his weekly open letter<\/a><\/strong> to the public, president Cyril Ramapahosa said that South Africa has been on a steep trajectory, with more than half of all cases since the start of the outbreak recorded over the last two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many South Africans, I too have been worried as I watch these figures keep rising,\u201d\u00a0 he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile these numbers are broadly in line with what the various models had projected, there is a big difference between looking at a graph on a piece of paper and seeing real people becoming infected, some getting ill and some dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having the most comprehensive testing on the African continent, experts have also warned that South Africa’s testing plans are failing due to a global shortage of tests and a lack of capacity to process those that have been administered, Bloomberg<\/a> <\/strong>reports.<\/p>\n

Leading epidemiologists are now calling on the government to change its strategy of trying to find infections in communities and instead focus on testing health-care workers and people who\u2019ve been hospitalised.<\/p>\n

The current strategy \u201cwould have been the right one if we could have accelerated and expanded the testing,\u201d said Marc Mendelson, head of the division of infectious diseases & HIV medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just wasn\u2019t possible, we lost that battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medical experts warn that Covid-19 cases are expected to spike in South Africa\u2019s most populous provinces in the coming weeks, following record daily increases over the past week.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the City Press<\/a><\/strong>, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Shabir Madhi said that the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and the Western Cape should brace for a surge of new cases\u00a0 \u2013 particularly the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n

He said that the province will likely reach the Western Cape\u2019s level of spread \u2013 in terms of a surge in cases \u2013 in two weeks\u2019 time, while Gauteng will reach that level in four weeks.<\/p>\n

\n

Western Cape\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Western Cape remains the Covid-19 epicentre in South Africa, with 33,568 cases \u2013 accounting for two-thirds (66%) of the country\u2019s total cases.<\/p>\n

The province has also reported a total of 829 deaths – accounting for more than 76% of the country’s total deaths.<\/p>\n

Regionally, the City of Cape Town is still the hardest hit by the outbreak, with the metro accounting for the majority of the cases in the province.<\/p>\n

The below maps show the province’s coronavirus ‘hotspots’ as of 8 June.<\/p>\n

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Gauteng<\/strong><\/p>\n

As at 8 June 2020 Gauteng accounts for 6,258 or 12.3% % of all Covid-19 cases in the country.<\/p>\n

While this is below the 6,341 cases reported in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng accounts for a large part of South Africa’s economic activity and there are concerns that a district-based lockdown could be particularly damaging.<\/p>\n

Regionally, the City of Johannesburg accounts for the biggest portion of cases in the province, with the latest district data showing the metro accounting for 2,889 cases (48.5).<\/p>\n

This is followed by the City of Ekurhuleni (1,206 cases), and the City of Tshwane (762 cases).<\/p>\n

While the province still boasts a high rate of recovery, Gauteng premier David Makhura said that active cases in the province doubled last week and now surpass the number of recoveries<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Read: South Africa\u2019s programme to stem the coronavirus tide is failing<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa reached a major coronavirus milestone on Monday (8 June), reporting over 50,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":400031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-405955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405955"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406025,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405955\/revisions\/406025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}