FULL SPEECH | 'We have let our guard down and are paying the price': Ramaphosa

• Published date: 28 December 2020
• Author: President Cyril Ramaphosa
• Publication title: SowetanLIVE (Johannesburg, South Africa)

In just four days from now, we will be ushering in a new year.

This is traditionally a time of festivity and celebrating. Unfortunately, for us here in South Africa and for others around the world, there is little cause for celebration this year.

Yesterday, we passed the mark of more than one million confirmed coronavirus cases in our country.

Nearly 27,000 South Africans are known to have died from COVID19.

The number of new coronavirus infections is climbing at an unprecedented rate.

More than 50,000 new cases have been reported since Christmas Eve.

The majority of new cases are emerging in KwaZuluNatal, the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.

Infections are also alarmingly on the rise in Limpopo.

Infections are on the rise in part because, as humans, we are social beings and have a need to socialise with one another.

We feel the need to visit friends and family, we attend religious services and we go to parties.

But this is a time of heightened danger in the face of a global pandemic.

Across the world countries are having to take drastic measures to curb new waves of infections.

We will all have heard that there is a new variant of COVID19 that is now wellestablished in our country.

As our scientists study this variant – called 501.V2 – and its spread, it appears that it may be more contagious than the virus that drove the first wave of infections.

The rapid rise in infections is being fuelled by socalled superspreader events, including like endofyear functions, family and social gatherings, and music and cultural events.

This is a cause for great alarm, and points to an extreme lack of vigilance over the holiday period.

We have let down our guard, and unfortunately we are now paying the price.

We have not been wearing masks.

We are not washing our hands or sanitising.

And we are not keeping a safe distance from others.

We have continued to host and attend social gatherings and events that in many cases flout public health regulations.

As has been the case previously, social gatherings substantially increase the risk of transmission.

Venues are often poorly ventilated and their permitted capacity is being exceeded.

Hand sanitiser is not being used, and masks are being worn to gain entry, only to be taken off once inside.

In these same social gatherings, the consumption of alcohol in restaurants, in nightclubs and taverns has contributed to risky behaviour like not wearing masks and not observing social distancing.

Excessive alcohol consumption is also driving up the number of trauma cases in our hospitals.

According to the data we have, with every relaxation of the restrictions on the sale of alcohol, the number of trauma cases reporting at our hospitals has increased.

These trauma cases are putting an unnecessary strain on our already stretched public health facilities.

Our hospitals, both private and public, are already close to full capacity in a number of provinces, and ICU beds are either full already or rapidly filling up.

In the Eastern Cape, for example, the number of hospitalisations and inhospital deaths has now surpassed the numbers witnessed in the first surge earlier this year.

Several provinces are hard at work to prepare additional beds, ventilators and oxygen to respond to this increase.

Our frontline healthcare workers, who have put their lives on the line over the past nine months to care for the ill, are becoming infected in higher numbers.

They are exhausted, and they are struggling under the strain of the second wave.

During the month of December, 4,630 public sector health employees contracted COVID19, bringing the total number infected since the start of the pandemic to over 41,000.

Yesterday, I saw a social media post from a doctor in one of our facilities, which I would like to share with you, because it captures the situation that our health workers face.

He writes:

"Half our consultants have COVID.

"More than half my colleagues had COVID or are currently in quarantine.

"Hospital is FULL. No oxygen points. Private hospitals are FULL. Not accepting more patients. No beds anywhere.

"And this is not yet the peak.

"Guys. We are all going to pay for your inability...