The Gauteng Health Department has hit back over criticism that it could never be ready for the pandemic, saying it had more beds available during the third wave than the previous two waves.
Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni Some provinces, however, had begun to show a downturn, including Eastern Cape and Western Cape. A nurse exits the red zone at the Nasrec quarantine/isolation site in Nasrec, 3 July 2020. Picture: Neil McCartney As other hotspot provinces are beginning to show signs of a slowdown, Gauteng is not yet out of the woods, the latest data suggests. In the first three weeks of the year, hospitalisations nationwide appeared to be stabilising, going from 13,332 in the first week to 8,911 in the second week and 8,932 in this, the third week. Of the 16,909 Covid-19 patients currently hospitalised, 5,424 are on ventilators. Last year, the government initiated the manufacture of 20,000 ventilators as a massive shortage of the equipment was predicted during the first wave. The latest figures by the Institute