Imtiaz Sooliman – Fourth wave not as severe as previous waves

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.