President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation about the Covid-19 state of disaster at 8pm on Saturday.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Tyrone Seale, said the address followed a meeting of the national coronavirus command council (NCCC) on Tuesday and meetings of the president’s co-ordinating council and cabinet on Saturday.
Seale’s brief statement said: “President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation at 20h00 this evening, Saturday 15 August 2020, on developments in South Africa’s risk-adjusted strategy to manage the spread of Covid-19.
“The president’s address will be broadcast live on television and radio and will be streamed live on a range of online platforms.”
TimesLIVE understands that the Covid-19 state of disaster, which ends on Saturday, will be extended with the publication of a government gazette.
Cooperative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and trade and industry minister Ebrahim Patel are expected to reveal details of the new level of lockdown early next week.
Last Sunday, a forum made up of directors-general of national departments (Fosad) decided to recommend to the NCCC that almost all sectors of the economy be opened except crowded places, but under strict enforcement of social distancing, hand sanitisation and wearing of masks.
Two people at the meeting said the dominant view among directors-general was that the economy had taken a battering and that more sectors should be opened to fire it up again.
SA, which has recorded 579,140 Covid-19 infections and 11,556 deaths, has enforced one of the strictest lockdowns in its battle against Covid-19. This includes prohibiting the sale of alcohol and tobacco and enforcing a night-time curfew.
In its weekly report on excess deaths on Wednesday, the Medical Research Council suggested that SA might have passed its epidemic peak in late July.
The number of active infections on Friday was 105,850, 39% lower than the peak reached on July 20.
By TimesLIVE
