South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday said the lockdown will undoubtedly take a big toll on the country’s economy but the lives of South Africans are more important, reported The Eyewitness News.
During his visit to the Water and Sanitation Department’s COVID-19 command center in Johannesburg, the resident appealed for patience and stressed the importance of complying with lockdown regulations.
The country is currently more than halfway through the lockdown and the president believes the lockdown was a good move to combat the spread of COVID-19. During the lockdown period, people are allowed to leave their homes only to seek medical care, buy food or collect a social grant. All shops and businesses except for pharmacies, laboratories, banks, supermarkets, petrol stations, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and healthcare providers have been shut down.
“And let me say that many other countries are following suit, they are seeing the effectiveness of locking down,” the South African president said.
He said that the economic impact of temporarily shutting down the country did not compare with the potential loss of lives due to the pandemic. He said the government will find ways to re-strengthen the economy once the corona virus pandemic is over.
“We will come up with strategies of how we re-engineer our economy get it to move forward but lives matter,” Ramapohosa said.
The South African president also repeatedly appealed for compliance with the lockdown. He summoned Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams who was recently pictured having lunch with former Higher Education deputy minister Mduduzi Manana. The two appeared to have disregarded the presidential orders to stay at home.
South Africa has so far reported over 1700 coronavirus cases with 13 deaths. The deadly virus, which originated in China’s Wuhan in December last year, has spread across the African continent, infecting more than 10,000 people and causing 487 deaths. Three of the region’s 54 countries including Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, and Lesotho remain apparently virus-free.
