Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize has raised the spectre of introducing severe movement restrictions on COVID-19 hotspots in South Africa if health interventions failed to reduce transmission of the disease.
He declined to list the exact criteria for returning to hard lockdown levels, but said if it became apparent that patterns of movement or social behaviour was making it impossible to contain the spread of Covid-19, the government would resort to draconian steps.
"If it means no movement, we will have to deal with it like that," he told a media briefing with a panel of advisors and health experts.
The minister cited the example of measures implemented in China's Wuhan province, where the Covid-19 pandemic began, that included prescribing when people were allowed to leave their homes to shop for essentials.
The government this week declared seven metropolitan areas and five districts hotspots because they had five or more Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people.
These include Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City and Chris Hani in the Eastern Cape.
Mkhize said when deciding whether to escalate a zone to a higher alert level, factors such as the availability of medical staff and hospital beds would be considered, as well as the reasons for the concentration of cases.
If "social contact, movement of people or behavioural attitudes" were found to be contributing factors, then restrictions would have to apply.
South Africa as a whole will move to alert level 3 on Monday to allow most of the economy to reopen and the Western Cape, which is home to almost two-thirds of the country's confirmed cases, has resisted suggestions that it should be on a higher alert level.
- African News Agency
