Lockdown is working as infection rate slows, Cyril Ramaphosa assures SA

The lockdown is working and has slowed the infection rate of SA’s Covid-19 outbreak, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation on Thursday night.

The number of infections rose to 1,934 on day 14 of the lockdown, an increase of 89 on the previous day’s numbers.

“It is too early to make a definitive analysis but there is sufficient evidence that the lockdown is working. In the two weeks before the lockdown, daily infections were increasing by 42%. Since the lockdown the daily increase has fallen to 4%,” said Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa, who extended SA’s lockdown by a further two weeks to the end of April, said it was too risky to lift the lockdown now.

“If we end the lockdown too soon or too abruptly, we risk a massive and uncontrolled resurgence of the disease ... This evening I stand before you to ask you to endure even longer. I have to ask you to make even greater sacrifices so that our country may survive this crisis, and so that tens of thousands of lives may be saved,” he said.

patonc@businesslive.co.za