President Cyril Ramaphosa broke his silence after testing positive for Covid-19. Image: GCIS/ Flickr
Ramaphosa breaks silence on COVID illness – with a warning for fellow South Africans
President Cyril Ramaphosa has broken his silence after testing positive for Covid-19 with a word of warning for his fellow South Africans.
President Cyril Ramaphosa broke his silence after testing positive for Covid-19. Image: GCIS/ Flickr
President Cyril Ramaphosa has broken his silence after the Office of the Presidency confirmed he has tested positive for COVID-19.
Ramaphosa is on sick leave this week in order to recover following a busy weekend of high-level engagements.
Consequently, the President took to social media with a word of warning for South Africans amid his personal battle with the virus.
Ramaphosa’s warning to SA amid COVID-19 pandemic
In his statement, Ramaphosa expressed his gratitude to those who had offered their support following his diagnosis.
“Thank you, fellow South Africans, for your good wishes following my COVID-19 positive result. As I recover, my message of the week is: don’t let your guard down. Do everything you can and need to, to stay safe, beginning with vaccination.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa
Despite testing positive after his own highly publicized vaccination, the President stressed his continued support for vaccines as a precautionary measure.
“Vaccines dramatically reduce the chances of severe illness, hospitalisation and death. Let’s all protect ourselves. Vaccination is free, easy and it works.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa
Most importantly, news of Ramaphosa testing positive for COVID-19 broke just hours after the state’s funeral for the late former president FW de Klerk.
Delivering his eulogy, Ramaphosa had dubbed the controversial apartheid era stateman as ‘born of the African soil’. Furthermore, the President called on the nation to ‘release’ De Klerk in order for him to be ‘at peace’.
“Frederik Willem de Klerk was born of the African soil. And it is to the African soil that he has now returned. And it is here, within the warm embrace of the African soil, that he shall forever remain. I call on all of us to now release him, so that he may be at peace.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa
Despite this, Ramaphosa didn’t fail to highlight the atrocities carried out during this dark moment in SA history.
“We can never forget the humiliation, the degradation and the inhumanity and cruelty. Nor must we ever forget the responsibility that we each bear to consign such suffering and injustice to the past.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa
