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Nation to go into lockdown from Thursday

Published:Tuesday | March 24, 2020 | 12:11 AM
A minibus taxi driver wearing a face musk looks on during his journey in Kwa-Thema east of Johannesburg, South Africa last week.
The Associated Press
A minibus taxi driver wearing a face musk looks on during his journey in Kwa-Thema east of Johannesburg, South Africa last week.

JOHANNESBURG (AP):

SOUTH AFRICA, Africa’s most industrialised economy and a nation of 57 million people, will go into a nationwide lockdown for 21 days from Thursday to fight the spread of the new coronavirus.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the measures Monday in response to the increase of COVID-19 cases to 402. South Africa will be the third country in Africa to close down all but essential economic activity, after Rwanda and Tunisia.

South Africa’s coronavirus cases jumped by 47 per cent on Monday from the day before with 128 new cases, increasing worries of exponential growth and making it the country with the most cases in Africa, taking over from Egypt.

More than half of South Africa’s total cases are in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, the country’s largest city with 5.7 million people, and the capital, Pretoria, with 2.4 million, according to figures released by the health ministry.

South Africa has not registered a death from the disease. The majority of cases are travellers from Europe and other countries, but the number of cases that are locally transmitted is rising.