CAPE TOWN, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Figures show that South Africa's Western Cape Province, which hosts the legislative capital Cape Town, is moving toward the third wave of COVID-19, a provincial official said on Sunday.
The province located in the southwest end of the nation is currently facing a resurgence of the pandemic as it has seen increases in case numbers every day over the past 12 days, Premier of the Western Cape Alan Winde said in a statement, while emphasizing the personal behavior in preventing the spread of the COVID-19 as the most important factor in slowing down the occurrence of the third wave, which could arrive in two to three weeks on the current trajectory.
He assured the public that the province is fully prepared for the surge in cases with a five-point plan, including changing community behaviors, surveillance and outbreak response.
Winde also said the province has enough beds, oxygen and staff to deal with the third wave.
Western Cape is one of the hardest-hit provinces in the pandemic in all nine provinces in South Africa. Saturday's statistics showed that the Western Cape recorded 251 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the provincial tally to 291,551, with 276,544 recoveries and 11,748 deaths.
