Imtiaz Sooliman – Fourth wave not as severe as previous waves
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the lack of COVID-19 cases in South Africa and the severity of infection in healthcare workers. They emphasize the importance of wearing masks and not taking chances, as the virus is not everyone's responsibility. The speakers also discuss the increasing spread of COVID-19 and the need for more healthcare workers to cover the whole country. They emphasize the importance of social distancing and maintaining health, as it is crucial for everyone to stay home and avoid getting infected.
AI: Summary ©
Now humanitarian NGO, gift of the givers is optimistic. The fourth
wave won't be as harsh as previous waves to of covid 19. To explain
why the organization believes this is the case in the face of rapidly
spreading infections, I'm joined now by his chairperson. Let's
welcome Doctor Imtiaz Suleman. Doctor Suleman, good afternoon.
Thank you very much for your time. Your sense of optimism is driven
by what factors? What are you seeing on the ground?
Good afternoon. It's more by what I'm not seeing on the ground. You
know, it's in the first three waves. You know, we was we were
getting flooded with calls. We were in the fourth wave peak, and
the numbers started rising. We were expecting calls to pour in
from CEOs, from medical managers, from hospital staff in general,
from gift of the givers team station all over the country in
greatest hospitals. From the public sector, from those who lend
out oxygen concentrator machines from ICUs. Not one call since the
24th of November till today. 24th was the day it was announced that
the new strain was detected in South Africa and identified from
that data today, not a single call. And yet, in a three strains
previous to that, we were we were flooded with calls virtually, what
without exaggeration, 1000s of calls. People call from the
public, no family members, late at night, 12 at night, two o'clock
the morning, all my team members will be woken up in the early
hours of the morning. We need oxygen. We need machines. We need
oxygen. Please. Can you help? Not a single call, which tells me that
whilst we have 1000s and 1000s of cases, and this number is probably
much higher than it's recorded, because many people still don't
test, and many people asymptomatic, and with all those
testing, we haven't had the level of admission, you know, in in
hospital, but more than the level of admission, the level of deaths,
because a lot of people died without admission. They died in
the homes, they died in the cars. They died in the casualty in the
car. Pumps. Many people, especially in the second wave,
died outside hospital, and we haven't seen anything to that
effect. And the other way of measuring it, the number of
funerals, you know, if you check with the federal Palace, it's
substantially low in this wave. Now what you are seeing, or what
you said, what you are not seeing on the ground indicates that
perhaps in this fourth wave, despite the new Omicron variant,
the level of aggression is not the same. Therefore, there's not much
severe illness going around.
Yes, it's very much transmissible. No, it's people are getting,
getting infected faster. And, you know, it goes back to the time in
the plane those people went to Netherlands, and that was stopped,
stopped from the km flight 12 hours before they left, nobody was
positive. Everybody had a negative test. And our 12 or 13 hours
later, there's 81 people positive. You know, how did that happen? The
distinct somebody became incubated and became positive. And straight
to those people, very, very fast. And even in hospitals, I mean in
the morning. I mean touch what a lot of hospitals. And the CEO will
tell you, you know what? I trust staff positive this morning, and
suddenly she tells you it's now 30, and then she tells you it's
50. It's within hours, it's spelling. In events, people are
going, you know, even at the rate event at the ICC, there was the
ICASA event, you find that within a short space of time the number
of positives increase. So yes, the rate of infection is very much
higher and very much faster, but the severity of infection is not
there. I'm sure. I don't practice medicine anymore, but I'm sure
those physicians being the blood markers, don't see the type of
blood changes that we've seen in the other three cases where the
blood changes were very, very severe. In this case, it's even
milder than than the flu. Most people we know recover within two
and a half days. Now. What are the lessons here? Because I mean,
there's still uncertainty, but what you are seeing is the reality
on the ground, as you saw eloquently. Point painted the
picture for us, Doctor Suleman, but there could be some lessons.
We can't really sit back and relax, because the last thing we
do need is something else coming up from the left field and putting
pressure, for example, on hospitalisations.
Complacency. The biggest disaster is complacency. We can't take a
chance. Because what's warning me is, why are there so many positive
healthcare workers? You know, most of them have been vaccinated, and
most of them I spoke to have been vaccinated. Some have taken
boosted doses, and some of them, or many people, have been ill
previously. They've had previous covid Yet they're positive again.
So either you know this, the strain is very, very unusual.
Alternatively, people are not wearing their masks. You know,
kids thinking they're vaccinated and it's safe, which is not true.
Yes, you may be safe from severe illness, you may be safe from
hospitalization, you're safe from ICU, but you are not safe from
being infected, and you are not safe from passing an infection a
fellow healthcare workers, of your family members. So the standard
rules that we had, we still have to have the social distancing, the
masking, the washing of hands, the cleaning of hand sanitizing, and,
of course, ventilation. We need to have lots of ventilation to make
sure, especially now when people are not being overseas anymore,
and I encourage them to do local tourism, support the economy,
support support local jobs. But when you go to restaurants,
preferably eat outside. You know, do everything outside.
It as far as possible. Do outdoor activities more than indoor
activities, because that's the best safeguard for you. Yes, you
may not get so sick now, but the chances are, if you slip up
somewhere and get into the habit of not being safe, we may get hit
by our next wave, which you won't be so friendly. Yeah, you are a
medical doctor. Before I let you go, I need to ask you this, what
you have observed, would you justify a change in the level of
restrictions from level one to a higher level. When the inter, when
the national coronavirus Command Council meets with the President?
No, it makes no sense. The testing labs are showing that the virus is
all over the country. What are they going to do? Jog the virus
down with the people? It's not going to work. All the labs are
showing high numbers of cases all over the country. So the virus is
all over the country. You just see the beaches, what it looked like
in the weekend. It's all over. It's spread all over as it doesn't
go to the Northern Cape. It's too far for it, I think. But, you
know, it's everywhere else. It doesn't make sense to do that, and
you have to better balance that off of the economy. Are you going
to achieve anything significant by locking down where there's not
severe infection, yes, there's number of people getting infected,
but hospitals are not compromised. They're not pressurized. There's
no issue there. And you're going to knock out more jobs, which are
going to be a more difficult thing to sort out. I would be dead
against going against higher than level one. What I aim for is that
the extra 100 and 50 billion rand that the finance minister has now,
Doctor mister ina karangwana should put that in putting more
healthcare workers in hospitals. We have a terrible shortage of
healthcare workers in hospitals. What these healthcare workers were
now, maybe asymptomatic, but still they have to be isolated. You
know, they're positive. They can't go and touch patients because the
patients will get scared. So it's not fair for positive workers. Are
you? Are you patients? Yeah, but at the same time, sorry, Doctor, M
just to come in there. Are you? Are you calling for, so to speak,
a concerted drive to employ more healthcare workers on an interim
basis or on a permanent basis, to close the gap that's being left by
those who are currently sick?
No permanent This is the call I met on the first day. Because,
remember, we were the only country virtually that went on a lockdown
when we had no wave. On the 15th of March last year, the President
announced a national disaster on the 27th of March, before our wave
came, we went into lockdown and caused a massive catastrophe in
terms of jobs and lockdown, and we were told the lockdown was being
put into place to prepare the hospitals. What preparations were
being done to prepare the hospitals? There were no
additional staff put in hospitals. There were no additional oxygen
points put in hospitals, and the hospitals were already severely
compromised. What a shortage of healthcare workers Before covid
came and they got and then, of course, we got hit by covid. More
than 1000 healthcare workers have died, and now, many 1000s are
infected right now, and we don't have replacements, even they were
Delhi darling, putting Junior interns to work. I think it
finally happened in the last 48 hours. You can't be dealing with
things like that. When you're dealing with people's health. You
have to have workers and to deal with the country and covid. Should
tell you that your biggest investment should be in
healthcare, and especially in personnel. So to answer your
question, we want permanent healthcare workers, doctors,
nurses, paramedics, physiotherapists, and especially a
lot of psychologists, because mental health has become a huge
problem right now. What what the anxiety with covid 19? Doctor, mts
suraman, thank you very much for your time and your very clear
message, there any lockdown, any further restrictions won't resolve
anything. He's, of course, the founder of the gift of the givers.
Currently, they're noticing a lot of infections all over the
country, especially with this Omicron variant. But illness is
not severe. There is no pressure on hospitals. So why you want to
lock down the economy? Very good point there being raised by
mentioned there by Doctor MJ suluman from the gift of the
givers.