President Ramaphosa speaks on extending the lockdown

Staying indoors has been considered an effective way to restrain the spread of the deadly virus. President Cyril Ramaphosa says the lockdown plays a major role in curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

The nation will know in a few days whether the 21-day lockdown will be extended or not.

Ramaphosa announced that in the next few days, the government will assess the effectiveness of the lockdown and whether it should be extended.

Speaking to journalists after touring a central water command centre in Joburg, Ramaphosa said the lockdown played a major role in curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

“If we had not locked down South Africa as we have, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt the infection rate would have been a lot higher than we have today. So the lockdown by all intents and purposes has been the most important measure,” said Ramaphosa.

He said the majority of people had been compliant with regulations but stressed that there were pockets of people in society who were going on with their lives as if things were normal.

“We want to say to those people even though we’re right in the middle of the lockdown period, that this is a serious disease,” he said”.

Ramaphosa’s call for people to abide by the regulations came after a picture emerged of Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams having lunch at former ANC MP Mduduzi Manana’s house.

Manana has since deleted the picture from Instagram but claimed the minister was working in his neighbourhood and popped in for lunch afterwards.

Ramaphosa said he saw the picture and called Ndabeni-Abraham to discuss it as it send the wrong message of what government was trying to do.

About the water centre, Ramaphosa said he visited it to see for himself the important component of the fight against the virus. Many of our people said they don’t have access to water, and that led us to immediately embark on a massive project of distributing water tanks throughout the country.

“Much as it is a pandemic that we don’t need in our lives, it has given us an opportunity as a country to work in a different way, to reach out to our people and deliver water.”