This archive report was first published on 12 July 2020.
As of Saturday, July 11, 2020, South Africa has become the 10th country globally in terms of COVID-19 infections, with a total of 264,184 confirmed cases.
The country's coronavirus cases have doubled in just two weeks, with the number of confirmed cases now surpassing a quarter of a million.
According to the Worldometers website, a total of 2,108,570 coronavirus tests have been conducted in South Africa as of Saturday, out of a population of 59,328,450 people.
The surge in cases has raised concerns about unequal treatment in the pandemic, with the wealthy hoarding medical equipment and using private hospitals, while the poor crowd into overwhelmed public facilities.
South Africa leads the world in terms of income inequality, and the pandemic has exposed the gap in care, with some of the worst-affected countries being among the world's most unequal.
Private Purchases of Medical Gear ¶
In Johannesburg, the epicenter of South Africa's outbreak, oxygen concentrators that help COVID-19 patients who are struggling to breathe are hard to find, as private businesses and individuals are buying them up, according to Lynne Wilkinson, a public health specialist volunteering at a field hospital.
South Africa's public hospitals are short on medical oxygen, and they are now seeing a higher proportion of deaths than private ones, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said.
The country's troubled power utility has announced new electricity cuts in the dead of winter, as a cold front brings freezing weather, and many of the country's urban poor live in shacks of scrap metal and wood.
More than 8,000 health workers across Africa have been infected, with half of them in South Africa, and in Kenya, some have been outraged by a local newspaper report that says several governors have installed intensive care unit equipment in their homes.
The country that has so far reported 9,726 cases lost its first doctor to COVID-19 this week, and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union has urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to implement a promised compensation package to ease the 'anxiety and fear that has now gripped health care workers.'
