What services will remain open?
- Most shops and businesses will be closed.
- The police, metro police, military and emergency services will continue to operate.
- Health care services such as hospitals, clinics, doctors, pharmacies and laboratories will remain open.
- Banks and essential financial and payment services, including the JSE will remain open.
- Supermarkets will remain open so that citizens can continue to care for themselves and their families.
- Petrol stations will remain open.
- Companies that are essential to the production and transportation of food, basic goods and medical supplies will remain open.
Efforts to contain the virus.
- This nationwide lockdown will be accompanied by a public health management programme which will significantly increase screening, testing, contact tracing and medical management.
- Community health teams will focus on expanding screening and testing where people live, focusing first on high density and high-risk areas.
- South African citizens and residents arriving from high-risk countries will automatically be placed under quarantine for 14 days.
- Non-South Africans arriving on flights from high-risk countries will be turned back.
- International flights to Lanseria Airport will be temporarily suspended.
- International travellers who arrived in South Africa after 9 March 2020 from high-risk countries will be confined to their hotels until they have completed a 14-day period of quarantine.
Economic interventions that are being put in place.
- A Solidarity Fund, which South African businesses, organisations and individuals, and members of the international community, can contribute to.
- The Fund will focus efforts to combat the spread of the virus, help us to track the spread, care for those who are ill and support those whose lives are disrupted.
- The Fund has a website – www.solidarityfund.co.za – and contributions can be deposited via the fund.
- The Fund will be administered by a reputable team of people, drawn from financial institutions, accounting firms and government.
- To get things moving, government is providing seed capital of R150 million and the private sector has already pledged to support this fund with financial contributions.
- Government will be doing its utmost and investing resources to save lives and to support the economy.
Assistance to businesses.
- Businesses in the informal sector such as spaza shops will be assisted.
- Registration is now open, on www.smmesa.gov.za, for small and medium-sized businesses that require help during the coronavirus crisis.
- The Department of Small Business Development has a debt-relief fund for small businesses.
- Small businesses affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus will be required to produce proof of negative impact as a result of COVID-19.
- Avert job losses through the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA).
- Government has urged malls and retailers to consider rent and payment holidays to tenants negatively affected by the lockdown.