The 21-day lockdown ‘will have a considerable impact on people’s livelihoods, on the life of our society and on our economy (but) the human cost of delaying this action would be far, far greater’, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
The lockdown comes into effect on midnight on Thursday. This follows a rise in positive cases to 402 yesterday. So far, 12 815 South Africans have been tested.
Ramaphosa said in his televised address last night: ‘Individuals will not be allowed to leave their homes except under strictly controlled circumstances, such as to seek medical care, buy food, medicine and other supplies or collect a social grant.
‘Temporary shelters that meet the necessary hygiene standards will be identified for homeless people. Sites are also being identified for quarantine and self- isolation for people who cannot self-isolate at home.
‘All shops and businesses will be closed, except for pharmacies, laboratories, banks, essential financial and payment services, including the JSE, supermarkets, petrol stations and health care providers.’
In terms of the regulations, South African citizens and residents arriving from high-risk countries will automatically be placed under quarantine for 14 days; non-South Africans arriving on flights from high-risk countries … will be turned back; international flights to Lanseria Airport will be temporarily suspended; and international travellers who arrived in South Africa after 9 March from high-risk countries will be confined to their hotels until they have completed a 14-day period of quarantine.
He announced wide-ranging economic relief measures.
The government was also setting up a Solidarity Fund, to which people and institutions could contribute, which would ‘focus on efforts to combat the spread of the virus, help us to track the spread, care for those who are ill and support those whose lives are disrupted’.
The government had contributed seed funding of R150 million. The Rupert and Oppenheimer families contributed R1 billion each ‘to assist small businesses and their employees affected by the coronavirus pandemic’.
Ramaphosa pointed out that the number of confirmed cases had increased six-fold in just eight days from 61 cases to 402 cases.