Staff Reporter
Mangaung Metro has been excluded from the list of COVID-19 hotspots which will be kept under close watch when the entire South Africa moves to alert Level 3 which will allow more economic activity and see the removal of several restrictions put in place as part of the national lockdown.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government has put in place a differentiated approach to deal with areas that have higher levels of infection and transmission in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the country.
“Even as we move to alert Level 3, it is important that we should be aware that there are a few parts of the country where the disease is concentrated and where infections continue to rise,” he said in a televised address this Sunday evening to give an update on efforts implemented to curb the disease.
Ramaphosa identified the metros of Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Ethekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City and Cape Town as the major hotspots of the pandemic in the country.
A hotspot is defined as an area that has more than five infected people per every 100 000 people or where new infections are increasing at a fast pace.
The other areas that are hotspots are West Coast, Overberg and Cape Winelands district municipalities in the Western Cape, Chris Hani district in the Eastern Cape and iLembe district in KwaZulu-Natal.
“We are particularly concerned about the situation in the city of Cape Town and in the Western Cape generally, which now has more than half the total infections in the country. We are attending to this as a matter of urgency,” Ramaphosa said.
Mangaung made headlines at the beginning of March after some overseas guests at a religious conference held at the Divine Restoration Ministries tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in several local people also contracting the disease.
The situation has since been put under control.
The president said the list of hotspot areas will be reviewed every two weeks depending on the progression of the virus.
“In dealing with the virus in these areas we will implement intensive interventions aimed at decreasing the number of new infections,” he said.
“We are putting in place enhanced measures of surveillance, infection control and management,” he explained, adding that a full-time team of experienced personnel will be assigned to each hotspot.
Ramaphosa announced that South Africa now has 22 583 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 429 people have died from the coronavirus since the country’s first case was confirmed on March 5.
This means that 22 new deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours, with the number of new cases reported in the same period being 1 240.
The Free State’s confirmed cases have risen to 199, with the deaths still at six and the recoveries now at 122.
Of the province’s confirmed cases, Mangaung accounts for 165 of them, followed by Thabo Mofutsanyana with 13, Xhariep with nine, Fezile Dabi with eight and Lejweleputswa with four.
