[imagesource: Esa Alexander]

There was a time, which reached its peak on the first morning that exercise was allowed and the whole of the Atlantic Seaboard hit up the Sea Point promenade, when Vaalies and Durbanites joked about Cape Town remaining locked down longer than the rest of the country.

Not that it’s a province by province issue, because as a country we struggle through this pandemic together, but judging by data from the past week or so, the tables seem to have turned.

During a provincial government press briefing on Wednesday, reports TimesLIVE, data showed that the Western Cape “has not only passed its COVID-19 peak but the dreaded “long plateau” seems to have given way to a steady decline in cases”.

The briefing was headed by Provincial head of health Dr Keith Cloete, outlining that the province’s first cases were actually in February and March, which is why the province was the first to be hit by rapid spread:

Cloete presented graphs which showed a sustained plateauing and the early signs of a decline across several indicators, including the number of deaths, the availability of hospital beds, and the tonnes of oxygen used.

“On both private and public sector testing there’s been a recent decline in tests being done. We haven’t changed our testing regiment, so for the same criteria of people we’ve been testing there’s been a reduction in the demand for tests from the same group of people,” he said.

You can see part of Dr Cloete’s presentation in the two videos below:

Data shows that the “peak platue” which was expected to be a long platue, has already started to decline in terms of #COVID19 cases. Western Cape cases are dropping. https://t.co/m3KrWOvuRg pic.twitter.com/InSyX83v40

— Aron Hyman (@aron_hyman) July 29, 2020

In addition to the drop in cases, there has also been a drop in the percentage of tests that yield positive results, down from 40% to 30%, with testing having been limited to healthcare staff, hospital patients, and those older than 55 years old with comorbidities that place them at additional risk.

Using the data collected, and the sequencing of viral strands which showed the first cases as far back as February, Dr Cloete reckons the province peaked towards the end of last month and the beginning of this one.

For more from Cloete’s presentation, head here.

I’m sure some will say there’s a case to be made for certain restrictions to be eased in a province where the pandemic has peaked, and is showing a “steady decline”.

(Alcohol sales, perhaps?)

In fact, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde wasted no time in putting forward that notion, reports News24:

The Western Cape needs different Covid-19 rules, to allow urgent economic activity and stop the “pandemic number two: unemployment, hunger and starvation”.

This was argued by Premier Alan Winde on Wednesday at his weekly digicon…

Winde said the lockdown regulations had caused “pandemic number two” – the economic catastrophe it had induced. The Western Cape now urgently needed a “differentiated” approach to the national regulations – to unlock the opening up of economic sectors currently battling to survive.

These included the wine and tourism industries in particular.

Winde requested an “urgent meeting” with Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as well as Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, so that he could make that case.

I’m sure Dlamini-Zuma will argue against it, saying she has a mountain of evidence showing that’s a bad idea, which she can’t produce because she doesn’t have it readily available.

That’s been her modus operandi, time and time again, during the national lockdown.

Winde will probably point to Mkhize’s statements from May 9, where he spoke of different alert levels, for different parts of the country, as well as President Ramaphosa’s evening address which echoed the same approach.

Despite all that talk, the country has remained on one set of regulations, and the same alert level, across the board.

Via Hydra Africa, here’s a look at the pandemic broken down by province:

Looks like KZN is the next province that is coming under fire, and I’m not sure their healthcare system will hold up as well as ours did in the Western Cape.

You can dig deeper into the stats of each province here.

[sources:timeslive&news24]