Discours du Président Sud-Africain Ramaphosa : Nous sommes prêts pour un assouplissement du confinement

Le président Cyril Ramaphosa s’est adressé ce mercredi soir pour annoncer, entre autres, que la majeure partie du pays serait au niveau 3 du verrouillage d’ici la fin de ce mois du mai et que l’assouplissement de certaines parties du pays les restrictions serait annoncé au prochain jour.

Vous trouverez ci-dessous son discours complète en anglais:

Statement by President Cyril Ramaphosa on South Africa’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Union Buildings, Tshwane, May 13 2020.

My fellow South Africans,

This week, our country reached a sad moment in the progression of the coronavirus pandemic, as we recorded our 219th death from the disease. Every life lost is a tragedy.

These 219 people who passed away had families, they had dependants, friends and colleagues. Their lives were cut short by a virus that has caused human and economic devastation across the world.

In recording and reporting on the daily figures of new infections, deaths and recoveries we can too easily lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with human lives.

This Coronavirus is taking a heavy toll not only on the health of our people, but also on our people’s ability to earn a living, to feed themselves and their families, to learn and to develop, and to enjoy many of the basic freedoms that we daily take for granted.

This evening, let us keep in our thoughts and prayers all those who have been infected by the coronavirus, all those who have lost loved ones, and also those who have endured – and continue to endure – great hardship because of the pandemic.

It is nearly 7 weeks since we implemented a nationwide lockdown. During this time, South Africans have demonstrated great courage, resilience and responsibility.

I once again thank you for the sacrifices you have made thus far. I would like to say, as I have said before, that despite its duration and its severity, the lockdown was absolutely necessary.

Without the lockdown the number of coronavirus infections would have soared uncontrollably

President Cyril Ramaphosa

Without the lockdown the number of coronavirus infections would have soared uncontrollably, our health facilities would have been overwhelmed and many thousands more South Africans would have died.

From the very beginning, our response has been guided by advice from world-leading experts from our own country and across the globe. We have also benefited from the guidance from the World Health Organisation.

The experiences that other nations have been through have also given us invaluable insights.

There have been several projections about the possible path the disease would have taken without our swift and decisive action. As more data has become available, these projections have been updated and refined.

The best current estimate is that, without the lockdown and the other measures we have taken, at least 80,000 South Africans could have been infected by now. And the death toll could have been at least eight times higher than it is.

As it stands, there are 219 people in South Africa who have succumbed to this disease.

By contrast, at a similar stage in the progression of the disease, the United States had recorded over 22,000 deaths and the United Kingdom over 19,000 deaths.

We should never forget that the purpose of the lockdown was to delay the spread of the virus and prevent a huge surge of infections. So far, we have been successful in the manner we as South Africans have responded and dealt with this virus.

The percentage of cases identified out of all the tests conducted – what is known as the positivity rate – has remained low and stable. The level of confirmed infections in South Africa is around 181 people per million of the population.

By contrast, countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Singapore have between 2,400 and 4,600 coronavirus cases per million people.

It is significant that out of the 12,074 confirmed cases in South Africa, we have recorded 4,745 recoveries.

By delaying the spread of the disease, we have been able to strengthen the capacity of our health system and to put in place wide-ranging public health programmes to better manage the inevitable increase in infections.

We now have nearly 25,000 additional beds available for quarantine. We have been able to source and produce substantial quantities of personal protective equipment for health workers, vital medical equipment and other supplies.

Using the valuable time which the lockdown gave us, we have managed to significantly expand our screening and testing programme.

In all, our field workers have now screened over 9-million people, and we have conducted nearly 370,000 coronavirus tests. This is the largest and most extensive public health mobilisation in the history of our country.

It has been made possible by the hard work and dedication of thousands of community workers, nurses, doctors and other health workers. They made enormous sacrifices to ensure the success of the lockdown.

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