On Thursday, 28 May 2020, the Western Cape Government held a digital press conference via Facebook, which outlined the updated COVID-19 scenario planning for the Western Cape.
Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde, opened the press conference and spoke about the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) having been set up with 850 beds to be a hospital facility for COVID-19 patients.
Western Cape Minister of Health, Nomafrench Mbombo, followed and spoke briefly on how the health care system is adapting daily on how to handle the pandemic.
Professor Andrew Boulle from the Western Cape Government Department of Health (WCGH) made a presentation on expectations (such as rate of hospitalisation) during COVID-19 in the Western Cape.
Members of the Actuarial Society of South Africa presented Models, which are tools to understand how the future might pan out under certain assumptions. The Models included projections of bed requirements and the expected peak of infections in the Western Cape. The peak of infections is expected to be in July and around 7800 beds would be needed in the Province.
Head of WCGH, Dr Keith Cloete spoke about the increased pressure on the health care system due to the pandemic. Additional human resource capacity is needed, as more health care workers are getting infected. This reduces the number of staff who can attend to patients, whilst the number of patients is increasing. He noted that this is not a challenge unique to the Western Cape as many other regions internationally have experienced this. WCGH is working towards getting more staff from other parts of country to assist.
The press conference was concluded with a question and answers session from members of the media who posed various questions to the speakers.
For more information, please visit facebook.com/windealan/