The African National Congress (ANC) says it will use a door-to-door campaign as one of its tools to combat the spread of the coronavirus. This could potentially be a dangerous idea, but nevertheless, the party thinks it’s worth it.
According to SABC News, this bright idea came while President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the media on Monday 16 March following the party’s extended session of the National Working Committee at St George’s Hotel in Irene, Pretoria.
The meeting which was also attended by the ANC’s provincial leadership, was held to discuss the introduction of government’s measures to stop the virus from spreading.
@MYANC undertaking mass education drive to get everyone involved in curbing the spread of the novel Coronavirus.#CoronaVirusoutbreak #COVID19SA pic.twitter.com/Yq4OjhkdDL
— African National Congress (@MYANC) March 16, 2020
Door-to-door work to educate South African citizens
Ramaphosa says structures must continue working and educating citizens.
“The ANC branch executive committee is required and expected to activate mobilisation to people aware of coronavirus and educate our people. We will do this by embarking on door-to-door work in our communities where we will go from house to house and explain to our people what this is all about and this is going to be necessary as this virus continues to be present among us,” he said.
Ramaphosa says the National Command Council will meet with religious leaders on Thursday to discuss their approach to Easter activities. On Sunday, the government prohibited the gathering of groups of more than a 100 as one of the measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Ramaphosa says religious leaders will get a full presentation on the coronavirus.
“We will have brought together all religious leaders so that they can get a full presentation about this virus. We can then have a discussion on how, as religious leaders, we are going to address this particularly as we are moving towards very important moments of manifestations; Easter,” he said.
A total of 62 South Africans have so far tested positive for the coronavirus in the country.
Why self-isolation is needed to combat the coronavirus
According to LiveScience, hospitals only have so much capacity to deal with these cases, and self-isolation helps reduce demand significantly:
Source: The South African Read More“The faster the infection curve rises, the quicker the local health care system gets overloaded beyond its capacity to treat people. As we’re seeing in Italy, more and more new patients may be forced to go without ICU beds, and more and more hospitals may run out of the basic supplies they need to respond to the outbreak.
“A flatter curve, on the other hand, assumes the same number of people ultimately get infected, but over a longer period of time. A slower infection rate means a less stressed health care system, fewer hospital visits on any given day and fewer sick people being turned away.”
Live Science
