Thank you, Madam Speaker. Question 121 put by hon Gela, he asked about what are the factors determining and the reasons for specifically declaring parts of the country as centres of Covid-19 infections and what work has been done by the department in relation to containment strategies. The first response is that these determining factors will be as follows: any geographic area which has recorded five or more positive cases per 100 000 population during a period under consideration is labelled as epistemological hotspot. This is informed by the weekly rate of change in the percent active positive cases per 100 000 population per geographic area.
Secondly, epistemological hotspots may occur because of importation of the Covid-19 virus into geographic areas or due to community transmission.
Thirdly, epistemological hotspots require that monitoring of the number of actual cases is undertaken and not only just the proportion of infections per population.
Fourthly, epistemological hotspot may include a ward, a sub- district or a cluster of wards, a district and or a metropolitan region. On the wake of the 16 to 22 May 2020, the following districts and metropolitan municipalities had five or more active positive cases per 100 000 population.
The City of Cape Town in metropolitan municipality in Western Cape, 117,2 cases per 100 000, Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape at 43,5 cases per 100 000 population, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality in the Eastern Cape, at 26,1 cases per 100 000, Cape Winelands District Municipality in the Western Cape at 22,2 cases per 100 000, iLembe in KwaZulu-Natal, 21,3 cases per 100 000 and in Chris Hani District Municipality in the Eastern Cape at 13,6 cases per 100 000. Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality at 13,2 cases per 100 000, eThekwini
Metropolitan Municipality at 12,1 cases per 100 000, West Coast District Municipality in the Western Cape at 10,6 and Overberg District in the Western Cape at 9. At Garden roads District in Western Cape at 5,4, City of Johannesburg in Gauteng at 5,3, Oliver Tambo at 5 per cases per 100 000 and Mangaung at 5 as well.
In some of the hotspots, cluster outbreaks have been identified and these have occurred in the agri-processing factories, supermarkets and farms and other processing areas.
With regard to the second question, work has been done by this department in relation to the containment strategies to address the exponential rise in the Covid-19 in specified areas. The department is undertaking active surveillance in the epistemological hotspots through spatial monitoring action rate from screening and testing people by scanning up scale testing. Of course, as they test, the test will become available. Testing in healthcare facilities increased in other areas where we are investigating outbreaks. We have priorities them. Quarantine facilities have also been mobilised or people under investigation.
Provinces have been urged to continue identify quarantine sites, accommodate positive patients or contacts so that anyone who is not in a position for self quarantine. Each province have established tracing teams and full time teams of experience personnel including epistemologist, family practitioners, nurses and community health workers, laboratory and public health experts. Emergency Medical Service, EMS, has been dispersed to the epistemological hotspots. This will be supported by the Cuban in national department, experts and also those from the military health services and Institute for National Institute for Communicable Diseases, NICD, and the National National Health Laboratory Service, NHLS. The Partner Institutional Viability Assessment, Piva, clinics has also been established to ensure that the stringing of visits in health facilities and system have been put in place to manage staff exposed to infections include the availability of the personal protective equipment, PPE. Thank you very much.