As South Africa’s positive cases rose by 80 to 1 585, President Cyril Ramaphosa – working from home – said monitoring and healthcare efforts were focused on 993 wards and priority districts, mostly made up of the most vulnerable and at-risk communities, as well as areas with high rates of infection.
Provinces were working with the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) to identify testing sites, which would include fixed and mobile facilities.
News24 reported that the government was ‘receiving early warning of potential clusters of infections through the Covid-19 Data Management Centre, therefore, pre-emptive targeted testing in identified areas has been deployed’.
Government was ramping up efforts to build up local manufacturing capacity and assessing the capacity of state-owned entities to produce essential supplies.
Ramaphosa emphasised that it had been countries that had imposed restrictions on movement and gatherings that had managed to flatten the curve.
The president urge the country to build on the momentum achieved so far in the fight against the virus. ‘The coronavirus changes everything,’ Ramaphosa said.
In other virus-related news
- AFP reported that the virus had caused the deaths of over 60 000 people worldwide, nearly three quarters of them in Europe. Of the total of 60 457 recorded deaths, 44 132 have been in Europe, the continent worst hit by the virus. With 14 681 deaths, Italy is the country with the highest death toll, followed by Spain (11 744), the United States (7 159), France (6 507) and Britain (4 313). So far, 1 130 204 cases have been declared officially in the world;
- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he would sign an executive order allowing medical students who were about to graduate to begin practising now, after a further 630 coronavirus deaths were reported in the state;
- The BBC reported that Britain’s NHS Director Stephen Powis said the virus was unlikely to be eradicated completely and it was too soon to talk of an exit strategy from current measures being taken to halt its spread. ‘It is very likely this virus will become established in populations around the world so we need strategy to manage this over time.’ Britain was developing tools to tackle the virus, including treatments, vaccines and making sure the NHS had the resilience to handle future cases; and
- In the United States, background checks for gun sales reached an all-time monthly high of 3.7 million in March, with coronavirus fears leading to long queues outside firearm stores across the country.