New projections show Covid-19 deaths reduced "by half"

Current Covid-19 projections show that fatalities will be reduced significantly.

Speaking at Thursday night’s Covid-19 press briefing, Dr. Sheena Moosa stated that new projections done following the complete lockdown in the capital, shows that there maybe “about 900” Covid-19 deaths in the country.

Previous projections conducted in mid-April, showed a possibility of the pandemic resulting in at least 2,000 deaths.

Highlighting this, the doctor stressed that fatalities “will be reduced even further” if the health system is not burdened. Hence, she called on all to follow social distancing rules as well as movement restriction measures.

The doctor also noted that the estimated peak case detection has also been significantly reduced, but that the surge is not small enough “given the number of estimated caseloads”.

Also at the press conference, Covid-19 taskforce's spokesperson Mohamed Mabrook Aziz stressed that the biggest hindrance currently has been testing capacity.

Noting that there are currently two testing machines being used in the country, Mabrook said that they had worked to find other means as well but to no avail.

He said that an extraction machine was to arrive in early May, adding that this will enable them to carry out at least 200 more tests per day.

Noting that there has been some delay in this, Mabrook stated that the machine is now expected to arrive in the country on May 17.