Business Day - 23 March 2020AL
"SA will go into a 21-day national lockdown starting at midnight on Thursday to combat the spread of Covid-19, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced.
The lockdown will continue until April 16 and South Africans will only be allowed to leave their homes under strict conditions, he said.
"This is a decisive measure to save millions of South Africans from infection and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," Ramaphosa said.
"While this measure will have a considerable impact on people’s livelihoods, on the life of our society and on our economy, the human cost of delaying this action would be far, far greater."
The national lockdown will be enacted in terms of the Disaster Management Act.
This comes as SA's number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 surged to 402 on Monday, up by 128 the day before.
On March 15, Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster and announced widespread measures to curb the virus such as closing schools early, travel bans from high-risk countries, the prohibition of gatherings more than 100 people and limiting the sale of alcohol."
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