A recovered COVID-19 patient from Knysna in the Western Cape has spoken out about the stigma attached to the virus.
Peter Myers, was the first person in the Garden Route to be diagnosed with the virus.
Myers returned from a trip overseas in March when he was diagnosed, along with his wife.
After their confidential medical records were leaked, the family faced criticism from some people in their community.
“We started getting posts on social media from a minority of people, we must be clear about that, accusing us of all sorts of horrendous acts like going to restaurants knowing that we were infected, mixing with other people knowing we were infected, infecting other people. And this is was not only hurtful to us but I felt extremely dangerous.”
Earlier in April calls intensified for public representatives to test for the coronavirus if they know they came into contact with people who tested positive.
The Congress of the People (Cope) said this will instill confidence in the public and defeat stigmatisation if public representatives take the lead in testing.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has now risen to 3034.
This is 251 up from the previous figure. The number of fatalities stands at 52. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize made the announcement at a media briefing on Saturday.
In this video below, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize addresses the media:
“As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases has gone up to 3034 and this comes out of a total of 108 021 tests that have been conducted to date. Gauteng still has the largest number of people who are positive. The number is 1101. Western Cape is next at 836,” said Mkhize.
Below is a Live Tracking of the cases, death toll and other information, updated daily:
