South Africa’s Johannesburg Mayor Geoff Makhubu has told his fellow residents that their city was far from being ready to ease restrictions governing the lockdown meant to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
The mayor said this when he presented the city’s Covid-19 Response Plan to the Parliament’s Co-operative Governance Committee on Friday.
Johannesburg, popularly known as Egoli (city of gold) by the locals, is in Gauteng Province which is second in having the number of confirmed cases (over 2,000 or 16.8%) in the country – surpassed only by the Western Cape Province which has over 7,000 or 56.8% of the confirmed infections.
In his Wednesday night televised address, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned that there was a possibility that some areas of the country could be left behind when the rest are lockdown-eased into Level 3 from the current Level 4 stage.
Gauteng Premier David Makhura said while Johannesburg remained the epicentre of coronavirus infections in his province, the South African economic capital’s densely- populated townships contributed to this source of grave concern.
South Africa has seen its number of infections soaring to 13,524 confirmed cases, with a death toll of 237 since the outbreak became known in the country in early March.
The figures come from 421,555 tests conducted in a nationwide door-to-door campaign, which has seen recoveries of 6,083 people from the disease, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.
NM/as/APA