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Today marks the eighth day of the national lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic to flatten the curve of infection. As per the latest official results released last night, only 9 cases have been recorded in North West.

While our efforts to combat the Cornavirus are unprecedented, calling for many sacrifices, the infection rate of this disease has called for extraordinary measures.

The lockdown has brought with it great disruption to our own personal and professional lives, the education of our children, the manner in which we access services and engage in economic activities.

Many of our fellow citizens, especially the elderly, the infirm and the young experience this lockdown as a great frustration, but despite these frustrations it would appear that the measures announced under the Disaster Management Act are having a positive impact on reducing the rate of infection.

We thank all the people of North West who have taken the necessity of the lockdown provisions to heart and adjusted their daily behaviours accordingly. We would like to reiterate our call that in order for us to overcome this pandemic, we all need to continue with the lockdown, to maintain physical distancing and take all precautions to halt the spread of the virus.

The DA in North West would like to thank all essential workers, from the SAPS, traffic officers, soldiers and medical professionals who are in the frontline in combatting this disease. We recognise your sacrifices and we salute you all. We are also grateful of their positive response to concerns we have raised with them.

It would be amiss of us not to also recognise the continued dedication of farmers, farm workers, all employees throughout the agri-value chain, cashiers and supermarket owners and workers, who continue to go to work to ensure that we have access to fresh produce and who enable us to stock up on our basic necessities.

DA Public Representatives will continue in their efforts to engage the people of the North West. We have been engaging vulnerable through various media platforms on the Coronavirus and our engagements have been warmly received by all stakeholders. We will do more to engage positively and assist where we can.

Over the next two weeks of lockdown, we urge all to stay at home, to remain safe and limit exposure to the Coronavirus. It is only through these sacrifices that we will be able to flatten the curve.

Together, we can beat Coronavirus.

Issued by DA