COVID-19. Why you need to act now.

On Sunday the 15^th of March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed South Africa on the response that we will take, together, to address the transmission of COVID-19.

CN&CO along with many of our partners, friends and family have taken proactive measures as the spread of the virus continues to gain speed in our country and around the world. The rate of transmission is staggering and will require humanity to work together to address it, to get an indication of the speed of transmission read this article.

The official name for the coronavirus disease is COVID-19. Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans.

The official virus is named – severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),

The World Health Organisation have opted to publicly refer to the virus as COVID-19 to avoid any confusion and mis-information linked to the SARS outbreak of 2003. WHO announced “COVID-19” as the name of this new disease on 11 February 2020, following guidelines previously developed with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Here are the notes from the presidential address where the Government of South Africa declared a National State of Disaster.

▪Infected as of Sunday (15 March 2020): 61

▪Internal Transmission Occuring

▪Limit Contact between Persons

▪Travel Ban from High Risk (italy iran south korea spain germany uk usa, china as of 18 mar 2020)

*South Africans are to Refrain from travelling to*

▪UK/USA/Europe/China/Iran/South Korea

▪People who visited High Risk areas as of mid Feb – are required to come in for testing

*South Africa has 72 ports of entry land/sea/airport*

▪53 Land Ports, 35 Shut down as of Monday

▪2 out of 8 sea port closed for passengers

▪Non-essential travel prohibited

▪*Non-essential domestic travel to be stopped*

*GROUPS OF PEOPLE*

▪Limit contact groups of people

▪Gatherings of more than 100pax = prohibited

▪All mass celebration public holidays cancelled

▪Organizers to put in place stringent measures for <100pax events

*SCHOOLS*

▪Schools will be closed from Wed 18 Mar

▪Schools will remain closed till after Easter

(July Holidays shortened by week ?)

*BUSINESS*

▪Mining retail banking farming to introduce measures for hygene control

▪Shopping Malls / Entertainment centres to bolster hygene control

*Citizens to Change behaviour*

▪Wash Hands frequently with soap + water or hand sanitizers for minimum 20sec

▪Cover nose/mouth cough/sneeze with tissue/flexed elbow

▪Avoid anyone with flulike symptoms

▪Minimize physical contact

▪Use Elbow greeting *no shaking hands*

The Government thanks businesses who have taken steps to protect their employees.

You can read the official statement released by the president below.

“We don’t control how the world works. We do, however, control how we respond. ” @ShaneAParrish in this weeks @farnamstreet weekly brainfood. Apt words for the current state of affairs around the globe. #Covid_19 @cnandco
— Josh Nuttall (@NuttallJosh) March 15, 2020

For live updates on the status of the virus follow the South African Resource Portal – https://sacoronavirus.co.za/

Another source of reliable information to follow is the content shared by Graeme Codrington off his social media handles. Watch his latest Instagram TV updates on COVID-19 below.

View this post on Instagram

What to do in March and April to prepare for Covid-19 to arrive in your community

A post shared by Graeme Codrington (@graemecodrington) on Mar 14, 2020 at 6:38am PDT