Cyril Ramaphosa to visit COVID-19 response centre

President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Thursday 9 April, visit the Department of Health (DoH)’s COVID-19 Information Centre — a data centre set up to monitor and track the spread of the virus in the country.

The centre is housed in a secure facility at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria. 

Information centre boasts real-time analytics

According to a statement by the presidency, the centre provides close to real-time analytics, dashboards on the coronavirus outbreak per province, district, local municipality and ward — information Cyril Ramaphosa should definitely have access to.

“A particularly useful capability is the mobile visualisation platform — the Cmore App — used by Community Health Workers to record screening data and symptoms and transmit information to the centre. It enables the near-live display of the Household Screening and Testing Programme,” said the statement. 

The data and insights generated by the centre are a significant input for decision-making by the National Command Council (NCC) chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The president will also be briefed on other projects that the CSIR is working on to support the immediate needs of South Africa in curbing the spread of the virus,” it added. 

SA awaits Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision on lockdown extension 

South African citizens are waiting for Cyril Ramaphosa to announce whether the 21-day nationwide lockdown will be extended or not. 

It’s a question we all need answered. 

“If we had not locked down South Africa as we have, I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt that the infection rate… would have been a lot, lot higher than what we have. But I’ve not decided on extending the lockdown yet,” he said.

“We must continue to take it seriously and abide by the regulations. We will soon be able to make a proper scientific judgement to explain how well lockdown is serving the country. But it has saved lives, and stopped the spread of the disease”

Cyril Ramaphosa

Cyril Ramaphosa also managed to squeeze in a joke. Whether South Africans found it funny or offensive, we don’t know.

“When will lockdown end? Some people are saying Thursday 16 April – but when we announced it, I didn’t say what year it would end! But no, I do not know when the lockdown will end.”