‘We don’t have all the facts yet’: Government to wait on extension decision

Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has said that there are no plans to extend the nationwide lockdown – yet. 

Following Health Minister Zweli Mkhize’s briefing to the press on Wednesday 1 April, Dlamini-Zuma conceded that government “doesn’t have all the facts” available to them to facilitate planning for further lockdown measures. 

“It’s still early to say whether it will be extended or not,” she said. “We’ve only had a week today — seven days.”

Not ready to extend lockdown

She was speaking during a briefing by the National Command Council (NCC) on Thursday 2 April after the council meeting chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, earlier in the day.

“Even that seven days, if you look at it properly, this week has been the grant payments, so there’s been a lot of movement [of] people going to receive their grants. So it’s too early to assess.

“We will make a proper assessment of what has happened. There is research being done and, at the right time, government will make that assessment to determine whether there’s an extension or not.

“For now it’s too early. We don’t have all the facts,” she said.

Earlier, Mkhize had said that government needed to ramp up tracing efforts to obtain a better picture of what the spread analytics look like. 

“We need to get out and go and find more and more of the people who are positive in the community,” he said.

On Wednesday, Mkhize said that the increase in the number of cases – which has slowed significantly since lockdown measures were implemented – could be the “calm before a heavy and devastating storm”.

Flu season approaches

As we entered day eight of the lockdown, South Africans have probably been wondering what life beyond the prohibitive measures holds. It is widely speculated that the allocated three-week period is merely a provisional time frame and that an extension is inevitable. 

Flu season is fast approaching, and government will want to do as much as possible to stem the spread of the virus before it arrives in earnest. 

The NCC announced a number of amendments to lockdown regulations on Thursday, and said that with the unprecedented circumstances comes a big need for dynamic flexibility, suggesting that things may change at any moment.