Spine Road on the N2 road leading to Khayelitsha is a hotbed of activity. It is a sunny Friday morning and the commune of Cape Town comes to life.
Women in nightgowns in outfits while others hang up their clothes. Up ahead, the shisanyama venues are buzzing with activity as consumers queue for their daily supply of braai meat.
The Covid-19 blockade in South Africa was launched to point 2 (out of five) on 18 August, but even as the economy opens, the fitness government continues to stress the importance of measures such as masking, hand and physical estating.
However, in Khayelitsha, few people wear masks and there are few symptoms of physical estating.
“Siyinqobile iCovid (We defeated Covid-19),” says one guy before disappearing into the sea of road huts.
A severely affected canton
As of 14 September, 8,333 cases of Covid-19 had been reported in Khayelitsha, representing about 10% of all cases in Cape Town. However, as elsewhere, the actual number of infections is much higher.
In a recent survey of anti-Covid-19 antibodies, more than 40% of HIV patients and pregnant women in the canton whose blood samples were tested showed anti-SRAS-CoV-2 antibodies, even if only 20% of Khayelitsha’s population was infected, the actual number would be several times higher than the official count.
The feeling that the initial wave of infections decreased was reinforced on 12 August when Western Cape Prime Minister Alan Winde announced the closure of the Khayelitsha Thusong center (a Covid-19 compromise facility).
As of Monday, September 14, there were forty-five cases shown active in the region.
Always “high” risk
Meanwhile, queues at the Khayelitsha Community Health Clinic are much shorter than before the virus hit the city for the first time.
Mziwonke Dlulane, 43, is waiting to be examined for Covid-19. The father of 3 is staying in the densely populated informal settlement. He tells Spotlight that he believes the likelihood of contracting the virus remains high.
A few days ago, Dlulane attended a funeral in Eastern Cape and said his concerned wife had suggested the test be done.
“Although she told him she was fine and had no symptoms, she insisted she come,” Dlulane says. “We live in communities where other people still don’t follow the rules. I’m wearing a mask, but some of my neighbors are laughing. “They ask me “why are you drowning with this thing in this scorching heat?”
Another resident, Babalwa Ntoyanto, 39, said she was accompanying a friend who was recovering her chronic medication and getting tested for Covid-19.
“I’m fine because I stay home and avoid places where there are big crowds. Some of us are still afraid to get this virus because we know other people who have died because of it,” says Ntoyanto.
Slow down
Thokoza Mdunyelwa and Nolufefe Mbi, both network fitness workers, claim to have been evaluated by Covid-19 blocking, but that things have slowed down since the beginning of Level 2, after filtering more than a hundred people per day, stricter blocking levels, say they are now hunting around 30 per day.
“People here in Khayelitsha think this virus is over. The fact that we are now in point 2 and the shebeens are open makes other people think we are okay. They don’t see the desire to get tested . . . they take this virus as a joke, ” says Mbi.
She contracted the Lock Level four virus and is considered lucky to have survived.
“I showed symptoms and without delay to take over on June 29. MBI said she had connected remotely at her home after giving positive, adding that the more than six months had been stressful for frontline staff like her. “
“Every day you’re worried about contracting the virus and infecting your family. I went to hell and came back here, but we have to persevere,” Mbi says.
In addition to low wages, long working hours and the feeling of not feeling appreciated, Mdunyelwa says they also have to suffer occasional abuse from citizens now that some network fitness staff members are making home visits. Covid-19 once refocused on HIV testing and TB tact and neglect tests.
Both claim that some residents of Khayelitsha, especially the elderly, still follow the rules.
“We have that they are vulnerable to the virus, but they are highly disciplined. They are the ones who keep us on guard, asking us questions about the virus and how to do it themselves,” Mdunyelwa says.
Promising signs
Prime Minister Alan Winde recently noted that three weeks after the start of Level 2, with more corporations open, more people returning to paintings and more people moving, there has been no accumulation in new cases.
“With the right security measures in place, we can reopen more and save jobs while saving lives,” Winde wrote in his weekly update on Covid-19.
“There is still no equipment to imply or when the virus will resurface.
“In the absence of a vaccine, habit replacement is the toughest weapon we’ve ever opposed to covid-19,” he says.
But is the Western Cape succeeding in its efforts to get others to replace its behavior, given the obvious rejection of the mask and physical estating in much of Khayelitsha?
Cayla Murray of the provincial fitness branch says her data on dresses in a mask is anecdotal right now.
“But he’s worried about other people being more accommodating,” he told Spotlight.
“The Western Cape Department of Community Safety, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Stellenbosch University, plans to adopt a small-scale study in Khayelitsha and the largest oriental fitness subdistrict in the short to long term to the percentage of others dressed in masks . . .
“The test will most likely be conducted over a few months to measure whether masking decreases over time with new adjustments to Covid-19 levels,” Murray said.
New settlements
Meanwhile, while the government is installing awareness billboards in Covid-19, citizens continue to erect cabins in open spaces in Khayelitsha, despite attempts across Cape Town to demolish the structures. Some of these new colonies are named after the fashionable words of the pandemic, such as “Sanitiser” and “Corona”.
“Sometimes we don’t have to think that we have to stick to those regulations when we hear on the radio that business has fallen,” says Thobeka Ncwaba, 53, a mother of seven living in a two-bedroom cabin in the newly created “Covid-19” informal facility along the N2 road beyond Khayelitsha.
“We live in a poor community. What we’re involved in is offering a meal for our families.
Originally from Idutywa in the Eastern Cape, Ncwaba says that if there’s one thing that would make him smile, it would be to have a decent roof over his head.
“We die every day here. not only Covid-19, but also fires in the huts. I had to move into this open area after my cabin burned down. We don’t have a selection to occupy those open areas yet because we don’t have a position to stay,” he says.
With huts built side by side, Ncwaba admits that physical distance and hand washing are in the new casual settlements.
“That’s why we, like other people in casual settlements, are more exposed to this virus. Every day, I myself am lucky that my children and I have no symptoms,” she says.
For a living, Ncwaba sells used garments in Khayelitsha and says the business has been running since covid-19 arrived.
Ncwaba says he doesn’t know how he would have survived without the government’s R350 social welfare allowance. She is one of thousands of beneficiaries lucky enough to have won the grant. Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, in reaction to a parliamentary question, said that as of August 19, “the number of grant programmes approved 4,424,720. “
However, many eligible beneficiaries have not been so lucky and have been rejected or are still waiting. The Auditor-General recently noted the grant process, stating that “some applicants may have been unfairly rejected due to replaced data on which the eligibility assessment was based.
“It’s very little (the grant), but what can we say?We’re hungry and anything that brings food to our mouths is appreciated. During point 5, I was lucky enough to get food packages from some of the Good Samaritan Whites (an organization) but since then nothing has been done,” Ncwaba says.
The media reported that a large number of other people eligible for government food packages had not won them, so civil society organizations had to intervene. Issued. .
Keep the wolf out of the door
Very close to Ncwaba, Lubabalo Putswana, 36, an informal trader, sells classic herbs. He says his circle of relatives will have to survive with those who win. Since the covid-19 coup, business has gone wrong, Putswana says.
It sells classic herbs such as impepho (a type of incense) and umhlonyane and claims that, according to stricter blocking regulations, it has not been able to sell its shares. However, Putwana temporarily insists that umhlonyane, contrary to popular belief, does not cure COVID-19.
But many consumers who come to their booth differently.
A woman, Nosakhele Vukubi, 45, says she uses classic herbs for flu symptoms because it’s less expensive than going to the doctor.
Putswana says it encourages its customers to comply with regulations and pass the assessment. The father of three was one of the beneficiaries who won the R350 welfare grant and says that while this is not enough, he manages to remain “the wolf outside the door. “
Challenges for health workers
According to Mzwanya Ndibongo, president of the Khayelitsha Health Forum, seven fitness facilities serve the region, clinics, day hospitals and a district hospital.
Ndibongo said during the closure, they noted that one of Site C’s busiest clinics, the Nolungile Clinic, had 20 fitness staff members who tested positive for Covid-19. A nurse at the clinic succumbed to the virus.
“We sit in forums to talk about these demanding situations in progress and hope that the answers will be discovered soon. Health personnel play an important role in combating this pandemic and every effort must be made to ensure that their morale is good. They paint in excessive situations and we owe them to make sure their career situations improve. They are other people who endanger their lives and deserve greater treatment,” he says.
Veronica Samuel, from Makhaza to Khayelitsha, who works for the NGO TB/HIV Care, says she has lost two covid-19 relatives.
“We keep sounding the alarm, but other people don’t need to listen. Unless you kill someone you enjoy, it’s just a joke,” he says Samuel. DM/MC
This article was produced through Spotlight – Health Journalism in the Public Interest. Subscribe to our newsletter.
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