Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says as of today the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases are 35 357, with a total number of deaths being 705. There have been 16 808 recoveries.
Professor Abdool Kareem, chairperson of the COVID-19 Ministerial Advisory Committee, said the lockdown shouldn’t be done in an abrupt manner but rather a phasing approach to ending lockdown.
South Africa entered level 3 of the lockdown stage today.
“Lowest risk would be things like institutions, companies where there is readily available social distancing like farming and retail where you have a lot of square meters for each employee,” he said.
“When you get to the big factories and factories that are not highly mechanised, where you have a lot of people in a very small space then one needs to bring those companies on board at the latter stages, because they would be one of the main sources where the virus can spread rapidly, it’s this kind of phasing approach to end lockdown that makes most sense.”
