Fear has gripped the nation with a school closing, the first Covid-19 patient’s company telling staff to work from home and masks being sold out.
Uncertainty and fear began to grip the country yesterday following the identification of South Africa’s first coronavirus case, with the man’s employer sending all staff to work from home until the National Institute for Communicable Diseases advises otherwise. The NICD said yesterday “we have tested 200 persons, of whom 144 were PUI [persons under investigation], and one tested positive. “The positive case continues to be isolated and containment measures are ongoing.
The University of Pretoria announced it would temporarily disable its biometric identification systems, which identify students from fingers or thumbs placed on a scanner, for fear of the virus spreading. The NICD this week said the patient was a 38-year-old man who had travelled with his wife and others to Italy, returning on 1 March. He consulted a private general practitioner on 3 March after feeling “uncomfortable” with symptoms of fever, headache, malaise, a sore throat and a cough.
Institutions of learning in KwaZulu-Natal have taken measures to deal with the threat of the disease, with Cowan House, the school the man’s children attend, having closed.
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