Nelson Mandela Bay interim mayor Thsonono Buyeye has announced that the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium would no longer be used as a Covid-19 isolation facility from Monday.
He said this at the stadium during a media briefing on Thursday.
Buyeye said that closure of the facility was as a result of the decline in the number of patients entering the facility.
He also added that the municipality did not see it as financially wise to continue using the stadium as a field hospital.
“We have seen the numbers of patients going down drastically and the argument was that the cost of running such a facility vs the people who are housed here was starting to become unjustifiable,” said Buyeye.
“Also, the fact that as the city, through our partnership with the business community, the VW plant is available and that it is also not housing as many people as expected.
“The projection from the health professionals was that August would be our peak, so we were anticipated that by this time this facility would be packed.”
“But through intervention and the grace of God, we are seeing something completely different to what we had anticipated.”
“On Wednesday, we took a decision that at the end of this month we are officially closing this site as an isolation venue.”
Buyeye said any new case will be sent to the VW site.
He said the stadium would return to its original use which includes hosting sports matches and events.
He said the stadium would be sanitised so it would be safe for soccer team, Chippa United to use it as a venue for their home ground for matches when the new Absa Premiership season starts on October 8.
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