- North West is experiencing a third wave of Covid-19 infections.
- The province is seeing an increase in the number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
- Premier Job Mokgoro revealed this during a virtual update on Thursday.
The North West province is currently in the third wave of Covid-19 infections, with a rapidly increasing number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths, Premier Job Mokgoro said on Thursday.
Mokgoro, who was speaking during a virtual briefing, stated that the need for tightening the regulations and possibly the imposition of a higher lockdown level were becoming more apparent to slow down the transmission of Covid-19.
It would, he added, also relieve the strain being experienced by the health system.
"As hospital admissions increase, the ability of the Department of Health to expand the vaccination programme decreases as staff must be re-assigned to the clinical units to attend to the sick persons.
"It is critically important that law enforcement agencies intensify the enforcement of compliance of communities with the prevailing regulations to control [the] further transmission of coronavirus," Mokgoro said.
The premier revealed the province had experienced a steady increase in daily new cases - from 274 reported on 31 May to 1 149 reported on 21 June 2021.
"The moving seven-day average has also steadily increased over the last three weeks, putting the province in the resurgence phase," Mokgoro said.
In addition, the province noted that hospital admissions have increased in the general wards, high care and ICU.
The Tshepong Hospital has the highest number of admissions, followed by Westvaal and Royal Bafokeng Platinum Hospitals.
To respond to the increasing need for admission of patients in hospitals, the province has dedicated 1 140 general beds, 65 high care beds and 47 ICU beds to deal with Covid-19 in public hospitals.
Cumulative number of #COVID cases reported in South Africa today is 1 973 972 with 19 506 new cases reported. Today 383 deaths have been reported which brings the total to 60 647 deaths. There are 1 748 043 recoveries with a recovery rate of 88,3% #CoronaVirusSA pic.twitter.com/TwDHUlqRdd
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) June 30, 2021
As of 30 June, North West had recorded 95 686 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 79 502 recoveries, and 2 286 deaths.