Ministers have been addressing the media after President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday night announced a number of measures to counter the spread.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said that South Africa was dealing with an explosive increase in coronavirus cases.

"We've seen in the past week, of which today is day 10, that we've increased [infection cases] from 1 to 51 which is doubling every day. No that for us is not just exponential, we think it's an explosive rise in the cases that are positive."

The minister said that should the number of cases run into the hundreds of thousands, it would overwhelm the country's health sector.

"We are still dealing with imported cases, which then become the biggest problem because each and every one of the individuals is capable of creating their own mini outbreak that can grow into massive numbers that you have to deal with in terms of contacts."

He warned that fighting the virus would not be an easy task.

"Each and everyone has to take responsibility to fight this infection and it's not simple, it's going to be very hard but just so that you have a sense of the lie of the land as we move into the future, we are determined to suffer as few casualties as possible. We are determined to deal with this outbreak and we are determined to take hard decisions, if need be."

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said that government was ready to spend money from the national disaster fund on the coronavirus response.

However, he said that the state would need to set aside further funding, which meant that government would have to reduce spending on other programmes.

“We will need to set aside further funding [and] that means we’ll have to reduce programmes throughout the government system by reducing the allocated amounts so that we can shift these funds towards this project,” Mboweni said.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said that hygiene measures in public transport areas would be implemented in trying to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.

Mbalula said he would meet with partners, including the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and taxi associations, to discuss his plans for the sectors.

“We’ve got Prasa which will undergo and perform sensitization in all our trains. Radom testing will be applied in all the taxi ranks and also in the trains,” Mbalula said.

SCHOOLS

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said schools they would lose 10 days of normal schooling.

“The heads of departments are also going to interact amongst themselves and we will be able to give further details... if there is any other information or notification,” Motshekga said.

Higher Education Minister Blaze Nzimande said they established a COVID-19 team with higher learning institutions.

“We are encouraging that all institutions should immediately suspend all contact lectures as well as minimise contact among students, but we are not yet planning a shutdown.”

MUNICIPALITIES

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said that should the need arise, municipal facilities would be made available to be used as quarantine facilities.

“If there are functions in the community, the municipalities must help us and the ward councillors and so on to make sure the gathering are not huge,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

To track the latest developments around the coronavirus both in South Africa and abroad, click on this live status report from Strategix.

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