#Lockdown south africa 2020 series
The president also outlined a series of economic interventions from the government and with the cooperation of relevant private sector bodies. The South African National Defence Force have been tasked to join the police to ensure the strict enforcement of the new rules. Ramaphosa said all South Africans will have to remain home: “Individuals will not be allowed to leave their homes except in exceptional circumstances,” he stressed. South Africa is among the most unequal countries in the world with 1 percent of its earners taking home almost 20 percent of all income in the country, according to the World Inequality Database.South Africa is currently Africa’s most impacted by the coronavirus. “There are over 50 percent who are poor and over 11 million South Africans are unemployed, so we need to be a lot more heavy-handed if we are going to be able to flatten the curve.”Īfter reporting its first case of COVID-19 on March 5, the country now has the highest number of infections in sub-Saharan Africa. “As much as we have learned from the global community, the reality is that South Africa has a unique set of circumstances of social economic status of people,” Gwarube said.
Siviwe Gwarube, a member of parliament with the main opposition party, Democratic Alliance, stressed that strict measures were needed in the fight against the pandemic. “With the additional week as a sort of buffer, we can assure that anyone who was infected before the lockdown will go through the symptoms and recover within those 21 days,” he told Al Jazeera. Health workers, emergency personnel and security services will be allowed to work, while soldiers will be deployed to patrol the streets in support of the police.Īfter reporting its first case of COVID-19 on March 5, the country now has the highest number of infections in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Unique circumstances’Ĭommenting on the president’s announcement, Mosa Moshabela, dean and head of the Nursing and Public Health School at the University of KwaZulu-Natal said the lockdown “is an opportunity to break transmissions”, referring to the 14-day incubation period during which the infection can flare into symptoms. Ramaphosa stressed that people will still be able to leave their homes to seek medical care, buy food or collect a social grant.Īll shops and businesses are to close, with the exemption of pharmacies, laboratories, banks, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, supermarkets, petrol stations and healthcare providers. The surge has raised alarms that a wider outbreak would put under serious stress the country’s already strained healthcare system in one of the world’s most unequal societies. On Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases leapt again to 554 – just over a week ago, the figure was 62. “This is a decisive measure to save lives of South Africans from infections and to save lives of hundreds of thousands of our people,” he added. “From midnight on Thursday, March 26 until midnight on Thursday, April 16, all South Africans will have to stay at home,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said late on Monday in a televised address to the nation.
People across South Africa are bracing for a 21-day lockdown after the government announced sweeping new measures to tackle the spread of the new coronavirus.
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