Makhura: Covid-19 cases in Joburg, Tshwane ‘shooting through the roof’

Makhura was joined by various law enforcement agencies and health officials during a Covid-19 screening and testing roadblock at the N1 Grasmere Toll Plaza on Monday.

“The department of health officials, together with the law enforcement agencies, started an operation that helps us to first check that there is compliance with regulations especially since the country moved to lockdown level 3,” Makhura said.

“All the people who pass in our roads who come back in our province must understand that wearing mask is now compulsory, we want to continue to urge people to sanitize, social distance and wear masks, those measures are very important.”

Makhura is concerned over the number of cases in Tshwane and Johannesburg, which have both been declared Covid-19 hotspots.  

He believes the surge in Covid-19 cases were fuelled by people attending parties during the festive season.

“We have already seen Johannesburg and Tshwane, the infection rate is shooting up the roof and one of the reason is that just before the New Year, just around Christmas, we saw a lot of parties.

“When the county moved to level 3 it helped us a great deal that particularly alcohol was not available, it helped healthcare workers a great deal, we saw the trauma cases were very, very low. In some hospitals there was not even a single admission.”

Listen to David Makhura below:

Many people are expected to return to Gauteng this week.

“We have seen significant increases in Covid-19 cases, particularly now that people are coming back from holidays,” Makhura said.

“We did say in December that we are going to have a lot of people leave the province and they are coming back in January the biggest headache or us and the health system is going to be on January.

“We are already seeing it, we have already exceeded the daily cases of 4000, and 3000 hospital admissions, those are indicators that the situation in the province is going to be difficult.

“We have seen the number of people who are succumbing to the virus is increasing daily. We want to say to the people of our province, those who are returning here, we want to call on them t comply with all the health measures.”

Various law enforcement agencies have been deployed throughout the province entries.

He says there are currently over 10 roadblocks throughout the province.

“The first thing is to check if the vehicles are roadworthy, no stolen vehicles or illegal weapons.

 Apart from that we also deal with conveying a message to the people of our province that all of us can contribute to reducing the number of cases,”

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