South Africa tightens up Covid-19 guidelines

South Africa has reached the one million Covid mark forcing President Cyril Ramaphosa to ban alcohol sales and introducing stricter health guidelines.

Medical workers prepare a COVID positive patient for a CT Scan at a clinic in Johannesburg Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020. South Africa's COVID-19 spike has taken the country to more than 1 million confirmed cases with hospitals reaching capacity and no sign of the new surge reaching a peak. (AP Photo/Shiraaz Mohamed.

The African giant is the worst-hit country on the continent by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Not only has South Africa recorded more infections than any African nation, but its also discovered a new and more aggressive mutation of the coronavirus, which is far more aggressive than the variant hitting the UK.

“Nearly 27,000 South Africans are known to have died from COVID-19. The number of new coronavirus infections is climbing at an unprecedented rate,” President Ramaphosa said. “More than 50,000 new cases have been reported since Christmas Eve.”

President Ramaphosa said on Monday his government has been left with no other choice but to implement a curfew, requiring all residents to be indoors by 9 pm until 6 am. Along with that, masks are now mandatory in all public areas, and beaches will now be closed indefinitely.

“As we had to in the early days of the lockdown, we now have to flatten the curve to protect the capacity of our healthcare system to enable it to respond effectively to this new wave of infections.”

By: Niza Nondo