- Alan Winde says he will - again - ask the president to end all current Covid-19 restrictions.
- Currently, the daily new Covid-19 admissions in the province stands at 45.
- Dr Keith Cloete says the daily new cases has decreased to 458 since last week.
"It's time that we do away with all Covid-19 restrictions on mask-wearing and gatherings."
These are the sentiments of Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, who says that he will, again, request that President Cyril Ramaphosa remove all current restrictions.
Winde said the latest data showed "we can now safely and fully reopen our economy".
During a digicon on Tuesday, the provincial head of health, Dr Keith Cloete, said the Cape Town metro hospitals had an average bed occupancy rate of 92%; George drainage area hospitals were at 77%; Paarl drainage area hospitals were at 80%; and Worcester drainage area hospitals were at 79%.
"Covid-19 and persons under investigation cases currently make up 3% of all available acute general hospital capacity in both metro and rural regional hospital drainage areas," said Cloete.
"We have continued to see a decline in new admissions since the second wave when the peak daily new admissions for the public sector was 369. It continued to decline to 297 in the third wave and 186 in the fourth wave," said Cloete.
Currently, daily new admissions stands at 45.
The premier said that, last month, he wrote a letter to the president, calling for an urgent President's Coordinating Council (PCC) meeting, so they can table the latest data in support of the complete removal of the remaining restrictions.
"No meeting has since been called and my office once again sent a reminder to the Presidency on Monday. We have still not received a response to the substance of this request," said Winde.
Winde said his proposal calls for congregations, convention centres, stadiums and other economic hubs to operate at full capacity.
"By doing away with these restrictions, we will enable businesses to operate at full capacity and grow. Residents should be allowed to practise the necessary behaviours that they deem fit - and they have learnt, throughout the pandemic, to protect themselves and those around them," he said.
Cloete said there had been a continued decoupling of Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
"The clearest indicator of this is that, in the Western Cape, there has been a reduction in severe disease during the current resurgence and the fourth wave, compared to earlier waves," said Cloete.
In the province, the latest stats show:
• The number of daily new cases has decreased since last week to 458 new diagnoses per day;
• The PCR proportion of positive tests has decreased to approximately 24%;
• New admissions have decreased to 45 admissions per day and are declining. There is clear data supporting the decoupling of infections and hospitalisations;
• Absolute numbers of deaths have decreased and remain relatively low at, on average, three deaths per day. This points to the decoupling of infections and deaths; and
• We are exiting a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, and the provincial health and wellness department is continuing to monitor this.
While the province briefly met the previous technical definition of a wave last month, the cases stayed at this level for just two weeks and did not increase beyond 1 200 new cases a day.
"As such, the national health department did not declare the recent resurgence as a wave," said Winde.
"As provincial government, we are fighting for our residents' businesses and jobs. The recent Quarterly Labour Force Survey has demonstrated that our country's unemployment rate has reached a crisis level and needs to be addressed with the same urgency that we showed when confronting Covid-19."
Winde said that, throughout this resurgence, the provincial healthcare system had remained at the lowest trigger system, despite the province having the resources available to scale up its response where needed.
"The reason for this is that vaccines are working, and residents have a much higher rate of immunity. Vaccinations and prior immunity further demonstrate that we can safely do away with all restrictions," said Winde.
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