Health minister Zweli Mkhize has announced that South Africa has recorded 3,158 Covid-19 cases, an increase of 124 cases over the past 24-hours.
Mkhize also stated that two new deaths attributed to Covid-19 were recorded, one in the Western Cape and one KwaZulu-Natal, bringing total deaths to 54.
The total number of tests conducted in South Africa increased to 114,711 – a daily increase of 6,690.
There have been 479 recoveries in Gauteng, 205 in the Western Cape, and 96 in KwaZulu-Natal.
#COVIDー19 Statistics in South Africa as at 19 April 2020. pic.twitter.com/oSzhbYamn8
— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) April 19, 2020
Globally, coronavirus cases moved past 2.35 million cases, with nearly 162,000 reported deaths and 606,654 recoveries.
President Donald Trump raised the prospect that China deliberately caused the Covid-19 outbreak and said there should be consequences if the country is found to be “knowingly responsible.”
“Let’s see what happens with their investigation. But we’re doing investigations also,” Trump said.
“If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, then there should be consequences.”
Trump’s campaign sent a fundraising email last week that accused China of “lying” about the outbreak. But the president hasn’t been as harsh, and praised China for its handling of the pandemic, Bloomberg reported.
Sweden’s unusual approach to fighting the pandemic is starting to yield results, according to the country’s top epidemiologist.
Anders Tegnell, the architect behind Sweden’s relatively relaxed response to Covid-19, told local media the latest figures on infection rates and fatalities indicate the situation is starting to stabilize, Bloomberg said.
Sweden had 14,385 confirmed cases on Sunday, with 1,540 deaths and 550 recoveries.
Respect lockdown regulations
Despite law enforcement authorities clamping down on defiant citizens for not observing the Covid-19 regulations, sections of society continue to disobey the lockdown rules.
This was revealed by police minister Bheki Cele on Sunday at the culmination of ministerial visits to provinces to assess the enforcement of the laws.
Among the niggling challenges authorities were grappling with was that they were still arresting people for possessing fraudulent lockdown permits; failure to confine themselves to places of residence; and illegal gatherings.
However, the violation of regulations prohibiting the sale of liquor was the biggest headache to law enforcement.
A plan for schools in South Africa
A new document proposes that matrics and students in grade 7 and 12 resume classes as early as May 6.
The document, seen by TimesLIVE, is based on the premise that president Cyril Ramaphosa lifts the extended lockdown at the end of the month, and was written up by a committee comprising the heads of the provincial education departments.
The proposals are contained in the department of basic education’s ”draft post Covid-19 lockdown recovery plan” which was discussed with teacher unions and governing body associations earlier this week, the paper said.
The document reportedly states that the remaining grades would be phased in, to try and salvage the academic year.
Tentative dates contained in the document include:
May 6 – Grades 12 and 7;
May 20 – Grades 11 and 6;
June 3 – Grades 10 and 5;
June 17 – Grades 9 and 4;
July 1 – Grades 8 and 3;
July 8 – Grades 2 and 1;
Grade R – July 15;
”Given the high risk associated with large gatherings, the DBE is considering a phased-in approach. The most critical grades will be brought in first to start the primary and secondary schools, while the remaining learners are retained at home, and they are brought in on an incremental basis,” the document stated.