Team effort necessary to curb COVID-19 spread

04 December 2020

Statement by the Mayoral Committee member for Community Services and Health,Councillor Zahid Badroodien

I once again joined the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Health Service on a series of COVID-19 compliance inspections in the Central Business District last night, during ‘First Thursdays’.

The general sense by the end of the evening was that Cape Town continues to struggle with inconsistent application of health and safety protocols to mitigate the risk of exposure and spread of the virus.

This was also evident during a visit to shopping malls on Black Friday.

We want our residents to enjoy the festive season, and we want our businesses to recoup some of the losses brought about by the hard lockdown earlier this year, but it needs to be a team effort.

The visit last night coincided with the President’s latest address to the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic, during which he announced stricter regulations for the Nelson Mandela Metropole, following a resurgence in COVID-19 cases there.

Cape Town remains at Alert Level 1, but we cannot afford to rest on our laurels, given the continued increase in transmission rates in the metro.

My observations from the recent excursions with Environmental Health is that we need to do a lot more to ensure that, as a city, we are able to slow the transmission of COVID-19.

The wearing of masks remains an issue, so too the lack of social distancing and in some instances, very lax sanitising measures.

As the peak of the festive season draws closer, we will see an increase in people socialising and moving around – increasing the risk of exposure.

It is time for every individual to take responsibility for their own safety and that of others by adhering to the prescribed protocols.

We have the playbook on how best to protect ourselves, but it is up to the players to execute it. Government can only do so much.

The City’s Environmental Health Service is compelled to monitor areas with high numbers of visitors, to ensure compliance. As part of its operations, it will continue to issue compliance notices. Continued non-compliance will be acted on by national government departments, who are mandated to act on contraventions of the disaster management regulations.

The public is also advised to report any non-compliance to the City’s Compliance Hotline on 021 444 3582.

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office