Cape Town – Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is expected to provide more details on the sector’s response to the impact of Covid-19 on schools today.
Last night, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the country was moving to adjusted level 4 as the Covid-19 infections continued to rise dominated by the more transmissible Delta variant.
“The closure of schools and other educational institutions for the winter holidays will be brought forward. Schools will start closing from this Wednesday, June 30, and all schools will be expected to be closed by the end of the week, on Friday,” Ramaphosa said.
“Contact classes at tertiary institutions will end by Wednesday, June 30, with limited access to the institutions. Residences will however remain open.”
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Ramaphosa said that Motshekga would provide more details on the arrangements.
Ramaphosa said the additional restrictions will be in place for the next 14 days. All gatherings, indoors and outdoors were prohibited, he said. Public places like beaches and parks remain open, but no gatherings are permitted.
The measures that we are putting in place now are designed to allow as much economic activity to continue as possible, while containing the spread of the virus.
He said that because the Delta variant was more contagious so the measures the country had in place may no longer be sufficient to reduce the spread.
“Our priority is to break the chain of transmission by reducing person-to-person contact and thereby help to flatten the curve,” Ramaphosa said.
“We are in the grip of a devastating wave that by all indications seems like it will be worse than those that preceded it.The peak of this third wave looks set to be higher than the previous two.”
He said that the first wave lasted 15 weeks, and the second wave lasted nine weeks.
“We don’t know how long this one will last, but indications are that it could last longer.”
The cumulative Covid-19 cases reported yesterday stood at 1 928 897 after 15 036 new cases were reported, the National Health Department said.
The department said this meant that the active cases in South Africa were 158 998 active cases in the country. The total number of deaths to date were 59 900 after 122 new deaths were reported. The recovery rate was 88.7%.
IOL