Government was warned that hospitals weren’t ready for a second wave – and didn’t do enough to fix it: report
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Health experts have criticised the government’s response to the second wave of Covid-19 in South Africa, saying that officials were warned about the poor state of hospitals in the country, but ended up not doing enough to improve the situation.
Now South Africa sits with hospitals nearing capacity amid record increases in Covid infections, while health workers suffer the brunt of the second wave – exhausted, under-equipped, and many succumbing to the virus themselves.
Hospitals are now less prepared to deal with the pandemic than during the first wave, the experts said.
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SA may have to wait months before it sees its first Covid vaccines.
By Loni Prinsloo and Mike Cohen, BloombergÂ
31 Dec 2020 07:12
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President Ramaphosa. Image: GCIS
South Africa, which has Africaâs worst recorded coronavirus outbreak, may have to wait months to receive its first vaccines even as other countries race to roll out the shots.
The government only expects vaccines that it paid a deposit to secure from the World Health Organizationâs Covax program to arrive in the second quarter of 2021, according to President Cyril Ramaphosa. The wait bodes ill for a country thatâs confronting a new more virulent strain of the virus, record new infections and a populace thatâs increasingly eschewed social distancing.