South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has announced a 21-days nationwide lockdown from midnight Thursday 26 March 2020.
Speaking in a national broadcast on Monday evening, Ramaphosa thanked the nation and people from all sectors for heeding the call to tackle the growing crisis. However, he said that more needed to be done to avoid “an enormous catastrophe” among the population.
In his address, he announced a number of interventions to help mitigate the businesses and the vulnerable in society. The President disclosed that an amount of 200 million rand (US$11.4 Million) facility has been set aside for Small and medium scale tourism businesses who may have been affected by the shutdown.
‘’ The Department of Tourism has made an additional R200 million available to assist SMEs in the tourism and hospitality sector who are under particular stress due to the new travel restrictions.’’ President Ramaphosa said.
South Africa now has 402 confirmed cases of Covid-19 – an increase of 128 from Sunday’s announcement. There have been no deaths.
