{"id":390655,"date":"2020-04-19T20:08:01","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T18:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=390655"},"modified":"2020-04-19T20:12:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T18:12:20","slug":"3158-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-with-54-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/390655\/3158-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-with-54-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"3,158 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa \u2013 with 54 deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Zweli Mkhize has announced that South Africa has recorded 3,158 Covid-19 cases, an increase of 124 cases over the past 24-hours.<\/p>\n<p>Mkhize also stated that two new deaths attributed to Covid-19 were recorded, one in the Western Cape and one KwaZulu-Natal, bringing total deaths to 54.<\/p>\n<p>The total number of tests conducted in South Africa increased to 114,711 \u2013 a daily increase of 6,690.<\/p>\n<p>There have been 479 recoveries in Gauteng, 205 in the Western Cape, and 96 in KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID%E3%83%BC19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID\u30fc19<\/a> Statistics in South Africa as at 19 April 2020. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oSzhbYamn8\">pic.twitter.com\/oSzhbYamn8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1251935045935411202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Globally, coronavirus cases moved past 2.35 million cases, with nearly 162,000 reported deaths and 606,654 recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump raised the prospect that China deliberately caused the Covid-19 outbreak and said there should be consequences if the country is found to be \u201cknowingly responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s see what happens with their investigation. But we\u2019re doing investigations also,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, then there should be consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s campaign sent a fundraising email last week that accused China of \u201clying\u201d about the outbreak. But the president hasn\u2019t been as harsh, and praised China for its handling of the pandemic, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden\u2019s unusual approach to fighting the pandemic is starting to yield results, according to the country\u2019s top epidemiologist.<\/p>\n<p>Anders Tegnell, the architect behind Sweden\u2019s relatively relaxed response to Covid-19, told local media the latest figures on infection rates and fatalities indicate the situation is starting to stabilize, Bloomberg said.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden had 14,385 confirmed cases on Sunday, with 1,540 deaths and 550 recoveries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Respect lockdown regulations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Despite law enforcement authorities clamping down on defiant citizens for not observing the Covid-19 regulations, sections of society continue to disobey the lockdown rules.<\/p>\n<p>This was revealed by police minister Bheki Cele on Sunday at the culmination of ministerial visits to provinces to assess the enforcement of the laws.<\/p>\n<p>Among the niggling challenges authorities were grappling with was that they were still arresting people for possessing fraudulent lockdown permits; failure to confine themselves to places of residence; and illegal gatherings.<\/p>\n<p>However, the violation of regulations prohibiting the sale of liquor was the biggest headache to law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A plan for schools in South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/390617\/a-plan-to-reopen-schools-in-may-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new document<\/a> proposes that matrics and students in grade 7 and 12 resume classes as early as May 6.<\/p>\n<p>The document, seen by TimesLIVE, is based on the premise that president Cyril Ramaphosa lifts the extended lockdown at the end of the month, and was written up by a committee comprising the heads of the provincial education departments.<\/p>\n<p>The proposals are contained in the department of basic education\u2019s \u201ddraft post Covid-19 lockdown recovery plan\u201d which was discussed with teacher unions and governing body associations earlier this week, the paper said.<\/p>\n<p>The document reportedly states that the remaining grades would be phased in, to try and salvage the academic year.<\/p>\n<p>Tentative dates contained in the document include:<\/p>\n<p>May 6 \u2013 Grades 12 and 7;<br \/>\nMay 20 \u2013 Grades 11 and 6;<br \/>\nJune 3 \u2013 Grades 10 and 5;<br \/>\nJune 17 \u2013 Grades 9 and 4;<br \/>\nJuly 1 \u2013 Grades 8 and 3;<br \/>\nJuly 8 \u2013 Grades 2 and 1;<br \/>\nGrade R \u2013 July 15;<\/p>\n<p>\u201dGiven the high risk associated with large gatherings, the DBE is considering a phased-in approach. The most critical grades will be brought in first to start the primary and secondary schools, while the remaining learners are retained at home, and they are brought in on an incremental basis,\u201d the document stated.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/390625\/officials-accused-of-hoarding-lockdown-food-packages-for-their-families-and-supporters-instead-of-the-poor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Officials accused of hoarding lockdown food packages for their families and supporters \u2013 instead of the poor<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Zweli Mkhize has announced that South Africa has recorded 3,158 Covid-19 cases, an increase of 124 cases over the past 24-hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":390209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-390655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390655"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390683,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390655\/revisions\/390683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}