STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD SECRETARY GENERAL & MEMBER OF WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT
*Covid19 cases hidden as Western Cape death toll heads to 1500*
21 June 2020
Our provincial government is now under-reporting new cases because they are not testing residents who do not meet their new criteria for testing.
It appears that the Western Cape agrees with Donald Trump that the more you test the bigger the problem appears and the worse you look.
But by abandoning mass testing the province is effectively hiding information from people of this province and denying them the ability to exercise informed choices.
The Western Cape has already lost the opportunity to control transmission through contact tracing. The virus is free floating in our communities.
Last month, we raised our concerns that the Western Cape had traced the fewest contacts per positive case and placed very few people in isolation or quarantine facilities.
I agree with National Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize that the Western Cape not tracing enough contacts was a mistake and is a lost opportunity.
Since the Western Cape government introduced their new Covid-19 testing strategy on 1 June the testing rate in the Western Cape is declining in real terms, from an average of 5800 tests per day between 6 June and 15 June down to an average of 3700 tests per day between 15 June and 20 June.
In the meantime the death toll in the Western Cape continues to rise rapidly. Within the next few days the Covid19 death toll in this province will exceed 1500.
Let us not compound the ‘mistake’, as Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize termed the province’s poor tracing record on Sunday, by now abandoning testing.
The reduced testing strategy now in place in the Western Cape means that reported cases will no longer reflect the true extent of the challenge we face. We should not allow the under-reporting to deceive us.
Ends…