South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Friday said the government is preparing for a possible resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which seems to be abating in the country in recent days, reported CGTN Africa.
In his update on the government’s response to the global pandemic, Mkhize said although South Africa has reported fewer confirmed coronavirus cases in the last few days, the country is still waiting and preparing for a higher increase based on the forecast and models.
South Africa remains the COVID-19 epicenter in Africa, with more than half of the total cases in the continent. The country ranks fifth in terms of number of confirmed cases globally, after the United States, Brazil, India and Russia.
As of Thursday, South Africa has reported 572,865 confirmed cases and 11,270 related deaths. In the past few days, the daily confirmed cases had hovered around 3,000, much lower than around 10,000 about one week ago.
“From what we are seeing, South Africa has fared a little better than we initially anticipated,” Mkhize said.
The South African health minister said the country had previously anticipated that the impact of COVID-19 would be far worse, with a much higher infection rate.
In response to growing calls for further easing of lockdown restrictions and re-opening of more sectors of the economy, Mkhize said the government is yet to make any decision on whether to ease the lockdown regulations.
He said the issue was still under consideration by the National Coronavirus Command Council.
“Right now a lot of consultations are going on and with the numbers that are moving, there’s certainly adjustments that we have to look at,” the South African health minister said.
He urged the people to keep adhering to health and safety regulations such as wearing face masks, maintaining social distance, and sanitization of hands if they want the government to ease lockdown restrictions.
