Northern Cape needs more Covid-19 testing and reporting
20 April 2020
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape calls on Health MEC, MaseManopole, to ramp up both Covid-19 testing and province-specific reporting in the Northern Cape.
This comes amidst concerns that, while the number of positive cases in the province has remained stagnant at just 16 cases since the 12th April 2020, the lull in case finding may be attributed more to a lack of testing than it is to the actual lack of the presence of Coronavirus in the province.
We appreciate a report by Health MEC Manopole last week that 130 000 people in the province had already been screened. However, screening, while very important, does not equate to actual testing.
Allegations of a reluctance by the state to test people in the province is fueling our concerns of the state’s actually readiness and capacity to do testing. In addition, there was also the cancellation of the mass screening and testing campaign in Sol Plaatje municipal area last week. Sol Plaatje municipality is the province’s most densely populated municipality, with the majority of NC residents residing here. We have furthermore received reports of a lack of test kits in other parts of the province, such as Namakwa.