South-Africa & Corona Virus

South-Africa & Corona Virus

I am seeing a lot of posts on the dreaded Corona virus. Here, in South-Africa, we only got the virus later, and it was brought back to the country by some tourists who traveled from Italy!!

They traveled in a group of ten, the first person showing signs of the virus, was only diagnosed two days after entering the country and the rest of the group about a week after entering the country. From there the numbers increased dramatically.Yesterday the official number was 61 cases. (Remember this is official diagnosed and confirmed cases, not the real number)

Yesterday evening, the president addressed the Nation and declared a National State of Disaster, during a televised address to the nation.
The entire Address can be seen by following the link.

There is now a ban on travelling to certain high risk countries, but not a complete ban, people are however discouraged to travel internationally. Stricter Visa controls are put in place and some border posts and ports are closed, with passenger terminals closed at all ports.

Public gatherings of more than 100 people are prohibited. Schools will close on Wednesday and stay closed until after Easter. The midyear break will be shortened to make up for lost time.

I saw some companies gave permission too their workers, who can work from home to do so, but unfortunately, my company are not so open-minded and is rather short sighted. Although I have all the facilities to work from home, I must still go to the office!!!

Some of you might know that I was diagnosed with Lymphoma Cancer at the end of 2018, but am in remission currently. I had to go for my quarterly maintenance chemo today, and thus did not go to work. I used the opportunity to stock up on groceries early this morning, before my treatment started. It seems, that I was just in time, as my wife also went to the shops after work and had to stand in long ques, to get stuff, and a lot of essentials were sold out already!! We now have enough food for a few weeks - I however hope that there won't be a shortage.

We are planning to go on vacation, with our caravan to the coast on Saturday morning. I will have to look at the situation carefully, before we go. The good thing of going with the caravan is that one has lots of fresh air, but bathrooms are shared with people who you don't know!! I have a friend who is already camping there, and according to him the food situation at the coast is not as bad as here where people rushed to get food and supplies to last for some time!!

What is your advice regarding the vacation??

I hope that the crisis don't get out of hand, as I don't think South Africa has the resources to cope with this!! We don't have enough hospitals to cope with our normal situation, never mind a full blown pandemic!!

Then there are hundreds of jokes on the virus:

Did you hear that Chuck Norris was diagnosed with Corona??
Yes, the virus is now under 14 day quarantine!!

All of the best to all the people reading this during this trying times!!