South African Covid Hospitalizations Approach 7,000
South African hospitals have 6,895 Covid-19 patients of which 6.8% are in intensive care units.
(Bloomberg) -- South African hospitals have 6,895 Covid-19 patients of which 6.8% are in intensive care units, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said in a report on Tuesday.
Of the 469 people in ICU, 187 are on ventilators, the institute said. Of the admissions 2,975 are in Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg and Pretoria. KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape are the next worst affected provinces.
The numbers compare with the 6,198 who were in the hospital a day earlier, with 6.8%, the same proportion, of those in ICU.
The Nov. 25 announcement of the discovery of a new coronavirus variant, now named omicron, had sparked concerns of a flood of hospitalizations and severe infections. The country’s three biggest private hospital groups have said that so far cases in the country appear to be milder than in previous infection waves.
The number of people in the hospital due to Covid-19 is, so far, a fraction of the total at the height of earlier infection waves. Covid-19 hospitalizations peaked at nearly 20,000 in January and July, the peaks of the country’s second and third waves respectively.
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