In its weekly update, the provincial health department says the case fatality rate now stands at around 3 percent. 

While the province is still expecting a late July peak, it’s not ruling out another spike in later months. 

The provincial health department said capacity at its COVID-19 facilities has not yet been exceeded – they are currently 70 percent full. 

Western Cape Health Department Chief of Operations Dr Keith Cloete said hospital admissions for COVID-19 have stabilised over the last ten days.

"The critical care beds occupancy reached a daily maximum of 320 patients, we are currently averaging 270 to 280 a day. The total maximum reached 1,900 patients, currently averaging between 1,600 and 1,800," Cloete said.

"The field hospitals have relieved the pressure on the acute hospitals significantly, so the impact of CTICC and Thusong has been big, and the additional capacity that Brackengate will bring will be big."

Jacaranda FM reported Discovery Health says it is willing to send non-Covid-19 patients to other parts of the country should hospitals run out of beds.

The medical scheme's CEO, Ryan Noach says so far they are optimistic that the country's infrastructure can cope with the load.

"Considering that the Western Cape has had the majority of its outbreak, and the data indicates that the Western Cape is on the other side of the peak, the Western Cape coped fine with the number of patients, although it was really hectic. But every single patient received high-quality care," Noach says.

He says in a worst-case scenario, the company will do its part to help alleviate the pressure in certain parts of the country.

"Should there be not sufficient ICU  beds in one region, what works to our advantage is that different parts of the country are peaking at different times,” he explains.  

"We have made contingency plans to move non-Covid patients - so patients who are in ICU for other reasons - to other parts of the country to open up capacity and to free beds up for very sick Covid patients."

eNCA/Jacaranda FM