Thu 09 July 2020:
A health official in South Africa’s new coronavirus hot spot of Gauteng province says authorities are preparing over 1.5 million gravesites as confirmed cases rise, AP news agency reported.
The province is on the brink of becoming the new epicentre of the pandemic in SA.
Provincial health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku and officials from the forensic pathology services visited an area reserved for Covid-19 burials in Tshwane on Wednesday.
Masuku said he was confident that Tshwane would be able to cater for any eventuality.
“For the past two months we have been visiting facilities that we will be using as a department. All our municipalities across the province have been preparing land that will be used for burials. We still have a good opportunity to manage how the peak treats us,” he said.
“The statistics have indicated that there is a 15%-30% increase in deaths from last year … we also have other causes of death but we are seeing the pressure in the system generally.
“We will be going to other parts of the province to make sure that this part of the health system is also ready for any eventuality,” he said.
City of Tshwane COO James Murphy said the site was being prepared in case there was a need for mass burials.
“In total we have more than 200,000 spaces, including normal burial spaces, but our major concern is to prepare for mass burial. Fortunately, as the MEC indicated, the numbers in Tshwane are still very low.
We are going to get to a time where we will not be able to do single burials, we are going to have to do mass burials and that would have to be directed by government itself,” he said.
The number of confirmed virus cases in Gauteng is now over 71,000, or 33 percent of South Africa’s cases. South Africa now stands at 224 665, along with 3 600 deaths and 106 842 recoveries and is posting some of the world’s highest daily totals of newly reported cases.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
