Statement by Premier Alan Winde: Hotspot strategy rolling out interventions to slow the spread and save lives
The Western Cape Government’s hotspot strategy has started to roll out innovative interventions across the province, which are specifically targeted to the needs of each area and community.
The hotspot strategy aims to reduce community transmission of COVID-19 in the areas where it is most prevalent, and to reduce the risk of vulnerable people in these communities.
Each hotspot is overseen by a Western Cape Minister and an HOD, reporting back to cabinet on plans and progress regularly. Each report focuses on issues including case management, quarantine and isolation, civil compliance, slowing the spread, humanitarian relief
Case management:
- Community health care workers visit homes and backyard dwellers in communities to screen and to refer vulnerable people for testing.
- Screening is also being conducted in old aged homes. The Department of Social Development has also provided additional resources including funding, masks and sanitizers to old age facilities.
- We have put in additional resources for case follow-up, using our call centre for check-ins and follow-ups. Quarantine and isolation in one of our facilities is offered multiple times during each one of these calls, for those who cannot isolate or quarantine at home.
Quarantine and isolation:
The province has a total of 41 quarantine and isolation facilities available in the province consisting of publicly and privately owned sites. As of 22 June, we had 948 people making use of these facilities. Our Red Dot Transport service is already operational in a number of hotspots, transporting people between their homes and quarantine and isolation facilities, with over 1100 trips already completed.
We are experiencing some hesitation from the public to take up quarantine and isolation when it is offered. The reasons for rejection vary and include concerns about leaving family members and children, concern that their homes would be broken into and their building materials stripped or stolen, and even the inability to drink alcohol, smoke or have visitors while in the facilities.
We are working closely with community orgnisations and religious leaders in areas where we are seeing high rejection rates of quarantine and isolation, in order to ensure that some of these community concerns can be addressed.
Civil compliance:
We are still seeing large numbers of people in communities who are not wearing masks, practicing social distancing and traveling outside of the regulations. We are working closely with SAPS and law enforcement, who are running roadblocks and vehicle checkpoints in areas across the province and in the metro.
In Khayelitsha, 60 Chrysalis graduates have been deployed to shopping centres, hospitals and government service points like Home Affairs and the SASSA pay point to encourage social distancing and ensure mask wearing.
We are also activating our Neighbourhood Watches in communities to encourage civil compliance, which will also be augmented by City of Cape Town volunteers in the metro.
We have engaged with NGOs working in some of the hotspots, and conducted telephonic surveys to determine some of the issues impacting civil compliance. These NGOs have raised issues of availability of masks as well as the ability to keep these clean. We are implementing various initiatives to make masks available. About 185 000 masks have been pledged in our Maskathon challenge being run with Wesgro and the City of Cape Town. In the Tygerberg sub-district, a pilot programme is making masks available to cultural and sporting organisations. We have also donated masks to old aged homes and provided masks for children returning to school.
Slowing the spread:
Sanitising of public facilities, including school feeding sites, transport interchanges and other public places is being done in hotspot areas.
Regular monitoring of adherence to protocols is taking place at transport interchanges in our hotspots which are also being cleaned on a regular basis. A USSD code has been developed for passengers to report taxis or transport operators who are not compliant.
Users can dial *134*234# and let the Department of Transport and Public Works know what kind of public transport vehicle they are travelling on, whether the vehicle is adhering to lockdown loading limits, whether the driver is wearing a mask, whether there is hand sanitiser on board, and whether the vehicle is clean and tidy.
Delivery of water via tankers is taking place in a number of informal settlements across hotspots in the province.
The Department of Social Development has engaged with SASSA to stagger the payment of social grants in coming months to ensure that people do not gather in long queues to collect grants.
EPWP workers and youth volunteers from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport have also been deployed to assist with public education, assistance on the ground with social distancing and other COVID-19 related tasks.
Communication:
The Western Cape Government has embarked on the biggest communications campaign on record. Approximately 10 000 posters are being erected in hotspots and a new radio campaign, the eighth since March, is focused on sharing messages in hotspot communities. Loud-hailing is being conducted in hotspots by both the Western Cape Government and the various municipalities.
Humanitarian relief and food security:
Each hotspot team has identified the various soup kitchens, and feeding schemes operating in their area. The Western Cape Government also tracks humanitarian and food relief on a publicly available dashboard.
Community food gardens have been established in each hotspot area and the Department of Agriculture has made food garden starter packs available to almost 90 homes in the Western sub-district.
In the Cape Winelands, work to reunify homeless people with their families is underway.
The Department of Agriculture has worked to connect the Brewery Collective, a group of breweries using their businesses to make soup for communities, with Philippi farmers supplying vegetables
Economic recovery:
A dashboard to measure economic activity in each of the hotspots is being devised.
Teams are engaging with the EDP to support community kitchens/social enterprises and spaza shops within certain areas with a focus on hotspot areas to stimulate local economic activity and provide food relief to communities in distress.
We provide support and advice to businesses through a number of platforms, including webinars, the Support Business website and the development of a PPE marketplace which connects mask suppliers with potential clients. We have provided industry specific guidelines for safe business operations and engaged with businesses and business chambers and sector representatives in hotspots. In Khayelitsha, we have a good working relationship with the Khayelitsha Development Forum.
We have also partnered with taxi associations in the Western Cape to provide the Red Dot service and provided masks, and sanitizers to the taxi industry, the agricultural industry and the Department of Economic Opportunities and Tourism, and the City of Cape Town are currently supplying kits to small businesses, containing masks, sanitizers and educational equipment which will help them to safely operate their businesses.
This strategy requires the work and effort of all levels of government, working in partnership with NGOs, community networks, businesses and civil society. It also requires every individual to take responsibility to ensure that they are protecting themselves, and their loved ones and help to slow the spread.
