Five critical points from David Makhura on Covid-19: 'We are ready for the worst'

Gauteng premier David Makhura on Tuesday spoke at the provincial virtual legislature sitting about the impact of Covid-19. He detailed issues including the progress made in flattening the infection curve and the decision to move to lockdown level 3 in June.

Here is a summary of what he said in five telling quotes:

Infection rate control

“Our province has been able to slow down the infection rate, particularly during the lockdown and it is also evident that in the top four provinces with the most confirmed cases, we have been able to slow the rate of transmission more effectively. Our province moved from having 50% of [the country's] confirmed cases to less than 15% of confirmed cases.”

Admission rate 

“Per week, we often have between 48 and 72 people, and we have even fewer in ICU. Often we have 4-8 people in ICU and that number is an important indicator of where death will hit from. Provinces that have more deaths have larger numbers of people in ICU, particularly those on ventilators.”

Moving to level 3

“We are going to level 3 in June as Gauteng and we cannot go in a disjointed way. We cannot have one municipality or metro on level 4 and another on level 3 or level 2. Even the districts are highly integrated, so we are going to level 3 together.”

Not out of the woods 

“Although so far our province has slowed the curve, our municipalities and provincial departments, working with national government departments, have been able to co-ordinate well. All models and scenarios are projecting that the road ahead will be tough and painful. The past two months' successes are not the end all and be all, so we must not be complacent.”

Health infrastructure 

“We are ready for the worst of times and we will continue to build capacity so that if the peak finds us any time, we should be ready. We are expanding our health services, employing more health workers and building more infrastructure. We are not putting resources into temporary structures, we want to put more resources into our existing infrastructure.”