SA's coronavirus cases now more than 1,100

SA recorded its first  coronavirus death  while global and local political leaders confirmed they had tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, the first of the country's 21 days of lockdown.

At a media briefing in Pretoria on Friday night, minister in the presidency Jackson Mthembu said the country now had 1,170 confirmed cases. The government seemed to backtrack on its earlier statement in the day when it said two people had died in the Western Cape.

It said there was now one confirmed case and one “suspected death” in the province. Mthembu said that would be explained.  

Defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said not all soldiers had been deployed on Friday, but that situation would change on Saturday.

She had received a number of queries over the issue.

There was a sense among government ministers that they were concerned that citizens were not yet taking the coronavirus seriously. “But this is a killer,”  Mapisa-Nqakula said.

People leaving provinces to return to their home provinces had been told to go back. This had also created confusion among South Africans, but government was working on the issue, she said.

Police minister Bheki Cele said 55 people had been arrested around the country for flouting lockdown laws.

“These people don't have a good will. Some were arrested for having street bashes, sitting under trees and drinking. They were undermining the lives of South Africans,” he said.

It was meant to be the first day of lockdown, but in many places around the country it seemed like people were ignoring instructions to stay at home.

In Johannesburg and Pretoria, many minibus taxi drivers lambasted regulations requiring them to reduce the number of passengers in their vehicles, who are essential workers permitted to travel. They said it was crippling them financially.

“They are crazy, if they were serious about shutting down the country, they would have provided means of transport for the people who must go to work. I can’t have seven people in a taxi that is running at a loss ... if they insist, we will stop and go home,” one driver said.

In Cape Town, throngs of homeless people, beggars, hustlers, refugees, and ordinary residents out shopping made it feel more like a Sunday after Christmas.

In the city centre, Central Improvement District staff tried in vain to get a group of young men off the street. They were from Manenberg, they said, on their way home.

Meanwhile, reverend Kenneth Meshoe, the leader of the African Christian Democratic Party, has tested positive for Covid-19.

So has Steve Swart, the party's chief whip in the National Assembly.

This was revealed by the party's deputy president, Wayne Thring, on Friday, just days after the ACDP had announced that Meshoe was in self-imposed isolation having shared close space with people who later had tested positive for Covid-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

Meshoe and his deputy were not the only political leaders to test positive. So, too, did British prime minister Boris Johnson.

Johnson posted a video on Twitter confirming he had tested positive for the deadly virus.

“I've developed mild symptoms of the coronavirus; that's to say a temperature, a persistent cough and on the advice of the chief medical officer, I've taken a test that has come out positive. — Additional reporting by TimesLIVE 

In the public interest none of our coronavirus news coverage will be behind our paywall, it is available free for all to read. If you would like to support our mission of delivering award-winning, independent local news, please consider taking out a subscription by clicking here: www.dispatchLIVE.co.za/buy/.