President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation soon to outline how the country will manage the Covid-19 pandemic once the national state of disaster is lifted.

“I am not going to be reckless. I am going to be orderly and in days I am going to address the nation and explain precisely where we are headed to and how we should traverse this new route we are going on,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the regulations had been published and the government was engaged in several processes and with leaders, including traditional and religious leaders.

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Speaking during a National Assembly sitting on Thursday, the president was referring to a process in which government is seeking public comment and opinion on how to handle the pandemic once the national state of disaster is removed.

TimesLIVE reported on Wednesday that in the government gazette, the national health department called for “meaningful input into the decision-making process” from members of the public.

Comments from the public will be received by the health department until April 15.

Answering a question put to him by DA leader John Steenhuisen regarding the national state of disaster, Ramaphosa reiterated the government’s commitment to end it after two years. However, he said: “There are certain measures we will need to keep under management to enable us to keep tabs on the pandemic.”

Ramaphosa said the pandemic had not suddenly disappeared “out of the window”.

“We are concerned about people who get infected, hospitalised and die. We are concerned about people who have not been vaccinated yet.

“All that needs to be properly managed. I said we are now going to have to rely on health measures, for instance, that will say if you are in an enclosed area where there is no proper ventilation, you are still required to wear a mask.

“You cannot breathe that into existence. You’ve got to regulate it and have to regulate it by a legal instrument.”

He said the government would move away from the harder state of disaster regulations to health measures “because we are dealing with a health pandemic”.

“If you have a problem with that, I am sorry. We are government, so we have to put regulations in place. As the opposition you have a different view but you are not government.

“You have always had a problem from day one, right from the word go.”

He told Steenhuisen the only time he made a positive contribution was during one meeting of political parties.

“You are entitled to differ, even with scientists, but we have been guided by those scientists and you can shout as much as you like. We as government act in the interests of South Africans.”

Ramaphosa said the government was being very careful because “there is nothing about killing jobs by saying people should wear a mask in a room like this. It defies logic. How are we killing jobs? In fact we are creating jobs because there are people who make the masks and new factories have come up that make masks so we can all feel safe.”

EFF leader Julius Malema told Ramaphosa “by closing stadiums, you are killing jobs”.

Ramaphosa responded that SA was no different to many other countries.

“The countries that have opened their stadia to 100% participation, they are at 70% to 80% vaccination. I have been saying as leaders, let us participate in encouraging our people to vaccinate. I am yet to see or hear leaders in the opposition benches talking about vaccination and going on the ground to tell people to get vaccinated.”

Instead, Ramaphosa said, opposition leaders criticise vaccination.

“We’ve done everything to manage this pandemic. The interests of our people when it comes to their lives and livelihoods has been my greatest preoccupation for the better part of the past two years.”

Ramaphosa said the government was embarking on a process that it hopes will boost the slow uptake of vaccinations. 

TimesLIVE