This was revealed by the executive mayor, Ms Maphefo Mogale-Letsie, on Thursday.

The public works and infrastructure minister, Patricia de Lille, announced last month that her department had identified 37 properties in various provinces that could be used as quarantine sites. “Some of these sites will be available to people living in informal settlements, where there are no such facilities available,” De Lille said at a media briefing in Parliament.

Although the Department of Health would not reveal where Merafong’s quarantine sites are, the mayor shed more light on the topic. She says the other quarantine site for Merafong is AngloGold Ashanti’s former West Wits Hospital, which the mining group recently made available for the Department of Health to use during the Covid-19 pandemic.