Staff Reporter
A Bloemfontein man got a shock when a bespectacled and masked woman walked into a shop in Rocklands township and asked him why he was not wearing a mask as he could be endangering his life and that of people around him in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Surprised by the woman’s boldness, the man fumbled through his pockets and pulled out his mask and immediately put it on, probably to avoid any further confrontation.
Unbeknown to him, the woman was Free State Health MEC Montseng Tsiu who was in the area to give out face shields to Red Cross volunteers and retail workers due to the nature of their work as well as monitoring adherence to social distancing.
“Why are you not taking your life, that of your family and community seriously?” asked an unimpressed Tsiu while maintaining her calm when she confronted the man without a mask.
“You have come to the shops under the pretext of buying essentials and here you are socialising without a mask.
“Now you will be interacting with many people contracting the virus unknowingly and taking it back to innocent people in your house.
“That’s how community transmission of the virus is going to spread like wildfire.”
After the brief lecture on COVID-19 that probably left the man a bit embarrassed but more informed, the MEC went on to interact with other people in the shop and issued the face shields to some of the staff.
Tsiu also visited the Twin City Mall and Lemo Mall where she handed over face shields to retail workers described as being at the coal face of social interactions and therefore at great risk of getting infected.
The face shields are part of the personal protective equipment which volunteers are expected to wear when they go out on door-to-door campaigns and while at public screening sites.
The MEC also interacted with soldiers and police officers out on patrol and expressed concern that some people were not observing social distancing while others were not wearing masks.
She said she was worried this could lead to community transmissions of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced during his a visit to the Western Cape this Saturday that South Africa had recorded 525 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 9 420.
Eight new deaths have been reported of which seven were from the Western Cape while one is from KwaZulu-Natal, to make the total 186.
The country has recorded 3 983 recoveries.
The Free State now has 134 confirmed cases after one new case was recorded.