S.Africa COVID-19 cases set to reach 300,000 despite early lockdown

By Tim Cocks
JOHANNESBURG, July 15 (Reuters) - South Africa's cases of
COVID-19 were set to reach 300,000 on Wednesday, the most in
Africa and in the top 10 in the world, despite a swiftly imposed
lockdown aimed at preventing infections spiralling as they did
in the West.
Africa's most industrialised nation has 298,292 cases at the
last count, and with positive tests now increasing at a rate of
more than 10,000 a day, it is all but certain to vault over the
300,000 mark when the ministry releases nightly figures on
Wednesday.
At the end of March, President Cyril Ramaphosa took
aggressive, early action, shutting shops, ordering people to
stay at home and sending the army on to the streets to enforce
it - when South Africa had only 400 cases and no recorded
deaths.
The government later eased many curbs over fears for its
struggling economy.
But with the world's fourth-largest daily increase in
coronavirus cases in a country of 58 million people, an
exasperated Ramaphosa on Sunday reimposed an alcohol ban and a
night curfew. "South Africa went into lockdown ... so early, (it looked)
... really impressive," said Charles Robertson, a senior
economist at Renaissance Capital, who has been closely tracking
the coronavirus.
"What became clear is that lockdowns don't work in
low-income countries," he said. "In informal economies, (people)
... can't afford to stay at home."
About half of South Africans live in poverty, and about a
third are unemployed - some 3 million have lost their jobs since
the lockdown began, according to a study by South Africa's
Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (CRAM) released on Tuesday.
In many parts of the country, COVID-19 wards are packed, so
patients are spilling out into other bits of hospitals and into
tents outside, health officials say.
"The storm that we have consistently warned South Africans
about is now arriving," Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told
parliament.
At just 4,346 deaths, barely 1.5% of cases have proved fatal
so far, in part because of a young population. That will rise as
shortages of oxygen and hospital beds worsen. Ramaphosa said
scientists had predicted up to 50,000 deaths.
"We are seeing a system that's under pressure, not under
disaster collapse ... But it's taking a huge strain," Charl van
Loggerenberg, head of emergency medicine at Life Healthcare,
which has private hospitals treating COVID patients across the
country, told Reuters.
At public hospitals, which were struggling with capacity
anyway, medics have complained about a lack of staff and
protective equipment.
"Not enough health workers have been hired, our requests for
PPE have been ignored, guidelines are not being followed," said
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, spokesman for the main nurses' union.
Gauteng, the province at the epicentre and home to the
biggest city, Johannesburg, is adding beds, setting up field
hospitals, and boosting numbers of medical workers, said Kwara
Kekana, a spokeswoman for the provincial health department.