The Gauteng government wants to be able to return to hard lockdowns to deal with the rocketing coronavirus caseload in the province.
Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku told the Sunday Times the provincial government wants to be able to have flexible shutdowns – “nobody goes to work and no-one moves” – for up to two weeks, then relax restrictions, then shut down again. “Then the economy opens up for a period of time, then it closes again,” he said.
But the decision has to come from national government, which wants to avoid lockdowns as much as possible to protect the economy.
Gauteng is now the centre of the Covid-19 storm in South Africa, with one of the highest rates of increase in cases in the world. There are at least 2,000 people currently hospitalised with the disease in the province.
