{"id":77621,"date":"2020-06-07T11:05:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T03:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=77621"},"modified":"2020-06-07T11:09:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T03:09:26","slug":"covid-19-south-africas-epicenter-seeking-thousands-health-workers-amid-surge-in-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=77621","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: South Africa&#8217;s epicenter seeking thousands health workers amid surge in cases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/bucket.mg.co.za\/wp-media\/2020\/05\/df96c9b3-presidentcyrilramaphosa_gcis-696x655.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption>President Cyril Ramaphosa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CAPE TOWN,\u00a0June\u00a07\u00a0(NNN-XINHUA)\u00a0&#8212;\u00a0<\/strong>The Western Cape province, South Africa&#8217;s epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, said that it is advertising for 5,272 health workers amid a spike in confirmed cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The province must address its medical staff shortage before the pandemic reaches its peak, Western Cape Premier Allan Winde said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The province is also working hard to prepare additional beds in the hospital system to ensure the capacity before the peak of the outbreak comes, Winde said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During a visit to the province on Friday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to address the urgent staff shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Money is not a problem,&#8221; Ramaphosa said, adding that the Western Cape will get what it needs to cope with the rapid rise in infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa issued orders to the Western Cape government to recruit more doctors and nurses to help deal with the increasing number of COVID-19 hospitalizations here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As of Saturday, the province has recorded 30,379 confirmed cases and 729 deaths, accounting for over 66 percent of the nation&#8217;s total and more than 76 percent of the nationwide death toll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nationwide, the country has reported 45,973 COVID-19 cases and 952 deaths, according to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The total number of recoveries in Western Cape province has increased to 17,366, while a total of 193,035 tests have been conducted, according to the province, where there are currently 1,082 patients receiving in-patient treatment at hospitals, with 226 of them in ICU or high care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some health officials believe a possible reason for the high number of cases in the Western Cape is that the province, with Cape Town as its provincial capital, is a foreign tourist attraction, and that the virus had probably already seeded itself among Cape Town communities long before the first case was confirmed in KwaZulu-Natal in early March. &#8212; NNN-XINHUA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CAPE TOWN,\u00a0June\u00a07\u00a0(NNN-XINHUA)\u00a0&#8212;\u00a0The Western Cape province, South Africa&#8217;s epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, said that it is advertising for 5,272 health workers amid a spike in confirmed cases. The province must address its medical staff shortage before the pandemic reaches its peak, Western Cape Premier Allan Winde said in a statement. The province is also working [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":77626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77621"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}