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How 5 March 2020 changed South Africa

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March 5, 2020, will go down as a historical moment for South Africa. As news of a new pandemic started spreading worldwide, South Africa recorded its first case.

COVID-19 reached our shores with the first case being confirmed by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NCID).

The patient was a 38-year-old male who travelled to Italy with his wife.

The patient consulted a private general practitioner on March 3, 2020, with symptoms of fever, headache, malaise, a sore throat and a cough.

With the breakout of COVID-19 originating in Wuhan in China, South Africa took the decision to evacuate 184 of its citizens from that city, with only seven opting to remain.

A year on and COVID-19 has had an impact in every sector of the country. South Africa has been through several lockdown levels, for the purposes of containing the spread of the virus which has claimed more than 50 000 lives in the country, and infecting more than 1.5 million to date.

Here are some of the highlights of the country’s COVID-19 journey:

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