{"id":443252,"date":"2020-10-26T07:42:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T05:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=443252"},"modified":"2020-10-26T07:42:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T05:42:23","slug":"premier-warns-of-another-hard-lockdown-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/443252\/premier-warns-of-another-hard-lockdown-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier warns of another hard lockdown for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health and government officials have warned about a spike in Covid-19 cases in South Africa, and the possible reintroduction of harder lockdown restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala said that a return to a hard lockdown is on the cards, unless the country sees a decline in the number of daily coronavirus cases.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Looking at the statistics, we can now safely say that we are definitely going back into a hard lockdown if there is no urgent and drastic change in behaviour,&#8221; said Zikalala in a media briefing on Sunday (26 October).<\/p>\n<p>He said that a second wave of Covid-19 will be &#8216;stronger and deadlier&#8217; \u2013 not only in deaths, but also in terms of economic hardship.\u00a0&#8220;There is no use in chasing profits today, only to be shut down by a hard lockdown tomorrow,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The premier pointed to \u201creckless trading in alcohol\u201d which has the \u201cpotential to derail all the progress we have made in preparing our healthcare system for a potential onslaught of Covid-19\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We cannot tolerate that, and therefore our inspectors will be going out in full force to enforce the law,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to address the nation this week about the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the country, the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m5_6NMox_Ss&amp;feature=emb_logo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SABC<\/a> <\/strong>reported.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa reported 1,622 new cases on Sunday (25 October), taking the total reported cases to 715,868.<\/p>\n<p>Deaths have reached 18,960 (a daily increase of 16), while recoveries have climbed to 646,170, leaving the country with a balance of 50,738 active cases.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FZqPDvUxvlc\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Zikalala&#8217;s comments come after health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said that he is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/442526\/mkhize-warns-over-spike-in-coronavirus-cases\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">concerned<\/a> <\/strong>about an apparent spike in coronavirus cases.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Mkhize said in a statement last week, that this wave in cases will be considered by the Department of Health as it makes new recommendations to government\u2019s National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As government, we have a responsibility to alert you when we see concerning trends. It would be irresponsible of us to ignore \u2018small flames\u2019 that we see redeveloping in some parts of the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mkhize said that similar trends were seen in South Africa at the start of its coronavirus pandemic, which quickly led to an increased burden on the healthcare sector.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wish to bring to the attention of all South Africans that our epidemiological reports are showing that in the country, over the last seven days there has been an increase of 9.1% in new cases. Similarly, over the last 14 days, there has been an increase of 10.7%.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said that in the last seven days, there was a marked increase in the number of new cases in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n<p>Mkhize said that the province recorded a 42% increase in new infections. He said that government\u2019s terminology defines this significant spike in new cases as a \u2018resurgence\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Western Cape Provincial Health Department has identified specific clusters that are responsible for the increase in cases, and has advised that each of these clusters has been investigated and a detailed outbreak response is being mounted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have noted that the single biggest cluster outbreak has been identified to be in the Southern Sub-district in the Cape Metro, and this has been associated with a super-spreader event in a bar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe await further reports from the Western Cape health response teams who are now required to target the sub-districts with a high increase of new cases over the last two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Western Cape Health Department has identified specific <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> clusters that are responsible for the increase in cases in that province. We must remain vigilant. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yzHZYFwoiz\">pic.twitter.com\/yzHZYFwoiz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1319254870789160967?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/443160\/proposal-to-change-rules-around-south-africas-state-of-disaster-including-extensions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Proposal to change rules around South Africa\u2019s state of disaster \u2013 including extensions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health and government officials have warned about a spike in Covid-19 cases in South Africa, and the possible reintroduction of harder lockdown restrictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":443260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-443252","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\/443252","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=443252"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443268,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443252\/revisions\/443268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}