No need yet for another hard lockdown in Gauteng, says Makhura

Gauteng Premier David Makhura says the province’s Covid-19 numbers do not indicate a need for another hard lockdown yet.

On Wednesday, Makhura briefed the media on measures to strengthen the province’s health department as well as announcing a new health MEC.

“At the moment in Gauteng, there is no case to have measures like the lockdown. We all know lockdowns can have a big impact and have to really weigh things very well. We are not there, the numbers don’t indicate that there is a need for that,” he said.

On Wednesday, it was reported the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) agreed there should be a 22.00pm curfew in Covid-19 hot spots across the country, alcohol sales should be restricted to Monday to Thursday, and pubs and taverns should close at 21.00pm.

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Makhura said he did not attend the NCCC meeting and was not in a position to comment on what was discussed.

“I am confident that the NCCC will take the interest of the people in our country into account but they will also look at the trend in each area. Should we have a big surge in January or February, I can’t say to you what we are going to do then,” he added.

Last week during a briefing, Makhura warned of a possible surge in January when people returned from holiday. To avoid this, he said, the health department would be implementing health check roadblocks.

He said: “Let me say to you when you come back in January, we will do what we normally do when people are returning to the province. We are going to conduct health-related operations, together with law enforcement operations, to ensure that we do screening and testing on the major roads.”

He also expressed confidence in his newly appointed health MEC, Nomathemba Mokgethi, and a newly appointed intervention to assist in avoiding another surge.

“The new MEC for health together with the intervention team and the department under the leadership of the acting HOD [head of department] have to ensure that the Gauteng province has learnt from the June/July surge, has better capacity and is better prepared for January, especially because a lot of people are going to move out of the province and will come back in January.”

On the issue of discrepancies in provincial Covid-19 statistics, Makhura said: “Those of you who have always gone through our reports will know there was always a variance between the district numbers and the province-wide numbers.

“There was always a variance and we were very transparent about it. When we get the new infections, the source of the numbers is from both the private and public sector [so] it takes us time to reconcile [those numbers].”

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