President Cyril Ramaphosa last night revealed that 1326 people have been infected with the Covid-19 virus and three people have died - the second and third fatalities happened in just two days.
He said the country was entering a new phase in the fight against the pandemic with screening, testing and tracing to be prioritised.
The medical management programme will involve “around 10,000 field workers visiting homes in villages, towns and cities to screen residents for Covid-19 symptoms”, Ramaphosa said.
“People with symptoms will be referred to local clinics or mobile clinics for testing.
“People who are infected with Coronavirus, but who have no or moderate symptoms will remain in isolation at home or at a facility provided by government and those with severe symptoms will be transferred to hospitals.”
Ramaphosa said mobile technology will be used and a tracing system will be “rapidly deployed to trace those who have been in contact with confirmed Coronavirus cases and to monitor the geographical location of new cases in real time”.
“This drive is far-reaching, it is intensive and it is unprecedented in scale.”
Ramaphosa denounced violent behaviour against civilians by members of SAPS and the SANDF who are enforcing the national lockdown throughout the country.
This comes after footage emerged of soldiers and police officers beating up civilians since the start of the lockdown on Friday, in which people were urged to remain in their homes until April 16.
“We have made it clear that the task of our security personnel is to support, to reassure and to comfort our people and to ensure that peace and order is maintained in our country. They know that they must act within the law at all times and that they must not cause harm to any of our people in any way whatsoever,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa lamented that the crisis was visiting the country while its economy was undergoing great strain, with credit ratings agency Moody’s having downgraded SA to junk status on Friday.
“This will significantly increase the cost of borrowing to fund government spending and will have a negative impact on the economy,” he said.
He said the development, which is a blow to SA as it is currently in recession, would however not diminish the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are pushing ahead to implement the necessary health interventions and economic and social measures to contain the spread of the disease and alleviate its effects on our people. Within the constraints of the current crisis, we remain committed to implementing structural economic reforms,” he added.