Tshwane universities behind spike in Gauteng Covid-19 numbers - Makhura
Universities in Tshwane are responsible for the spike in new Covid-19 cases witnessed in Gauteng over the past week.
Briefing the media in Ivory Park on Thursday, alongside the provincial command council, Premier David Makhura said the situation in Tshwane is of great concern.
“Whilst these numbers are rising rapidly, the infections are rising rapidly, driven from the north of our province, that is in the City of Tshwane. That is where the new resurgence in the universities in particular.
“The universities in the north are TUT, Sefako Makgatho, which is our medical school and the universities in the centre of Tshwane, the University of Pretoria and Unisa. That is where the major observations were coming from. We have something new happening at our universities, especially amongst young people.”
In the final week of November, sub-districts in Tshwane recorded a 20% positivity rate.
Although other districts are also showing an increase, it’s not at the same rate as Tshwane.
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Gauteng is expecting to reach its peak in the next fortnight.
Gauteng advisory committee member Dr Mary Kawonga says the peak will happen earlier than anticipated.
“Regarding the peak, the modeling that Professor Maladu presented earlier showed that we are expecting the peak to come earlier than the predictions. This will be in about two and two and half weeks with about 45 000 active cases.”
On Wednesday, the country recorded over 8500 new Covid-19 cases, mainly driven by the Omicron variant.
Over 6 100 of the new cases were from Gauteng.
