Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says the lockdown has so far helped in reducing the number of COVID-19 infections in the country.
Friday marks a week since the 21-day national lockdown in South Africa came into effect.
So far 1462 people have tested positive for COVID-19 with five deaths.
Mkhize says there are challenges but we need to work together to reduce the rate of infections.
He says, “One of the challenges in such a thing is that you won’t know as you’re doing this what is working and what is not working, you can only look back afterwards. I think all of us must really give each other the kind of support that we need to make the decision, they might be mistakes, we’ll see what works and what doesn’t work until we can get ourselves out of the problem.”
INFOGRAPHIC: Number of COVID-19 cases:
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Nasrec Expo Centre to accommodate COVID-19 patients
The Gauteng Department of Health is planning on using the Nasrec Expo Centre as a health facility to accommodate COVID-19 patients.
It says it is looking at various options in both the public and private sectors to accommodate patients should the pandemic get worse.
The department is looking at using the Nasrec facility to accommodate at least 2 000 patients at a time.
Gauteng Health Department Spokesperson Kwara Kekana says, “The Gauteng Department of Health is looking at various private and public facilities for the purposes of quarantine for COVID-19 cases. Some of the facilities include Nasrec that is being looked into as a facility that can accommodate cases for the purposes of quarantine. The department is also in constant engagement with the private sector facilities to assist with its own bed capacity to accommodate some of the COVID-19 cases in the province.”
The video below shows Johannesburg’s COVID-19 testing centres:
Below is a Live Tracking of the cases, death toll and other information:
