South Africa has entered Level 3 of the lockdown, which sees most companies reopen and an easing of some regulations. President Cyril Ramaphosa last week emphasised that government was guided by both WHO and local scientists’ advice.

Some local experts had called for Level 1 of the lockdown to be introduced immediately. The Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Mike Ryan, says the Ramaphosa administration has done well so far in its handling of the pandemic.

“I would commend South Africa in the way in which it has energised and mobilised its community health workers for both community education and surveillance. The way that the capacity to detect, test and trace cases have increased through the use of mobile clinics and mobile teams and that measured approach allows countries to come out of the so-called lockdowns and replace lockdowns with a more comprehensive set of public health and social interventions that will allow us to live in a sustainable way with this virus until we reach a point where we have vaccines and other interventions that may eventually allow us to eliminate the virus. ”

South Africa currently has a total of  34 357 coronavirus cases and 705 deaths. There are 17 291 recoveries.

SABC News