Ramaphosa 'impressed' by ability to track virus in SA

President Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “hugely impressed” by the efforts of the department of health and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to use technology to track the spread of Covid-19 in the country.

Ramaphosa visited the health department’s Covid-19 information centre, a data centre set up to monitor and track the spread of the coronavirus, on Thursday where he was briefed on mechanisms to track government’s response to the pandemic.

“I was hugely impressed to see how we are able, through the facility we have here, to look at the entire country and see how we can get data and information about the incidents of infection of coronavirus throughout the country. More important is how we are able through science and technology to drill it down to provincial, district, municipality, ward level and street level as they track the people that are infected,” Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa was shown how government is able to provide close to real-time analytics and dashboards on the coronavirus outbreak per province, district, local municipality, and ward.

“As a nation, we should be proud that we have an institution like the CSIR which is always trying to be ahead of the curve in terms of bringing solutions for the nations to utilise,” Ramaphosa said.

The CSIR has also mapped which areas across the country are most vulnerable to the contagion.

Data mined and mapped at the information centre is used by the national command council — chaired by Ramaphosa — in decision-making.

The president was given details of the Cmore App which is to be used by community health workers to record screening data and symptoms and transmit information to the centre.

This app enables a “near-live display of the Household Screening and Testing Programme”. 

“20,000 will have phones with an app to enable us to get data to this centre at CSIR in real time as they input data and screen people,” Ramaphosa said.

He thanked Vodacom for coming on board with 20,000 phones that have the app to be used by health care workers.

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub handed over one of the phones that would be distributed to Ramaphosa.

The president said he announced that there would be 10,000 officials conducting screenings across the country but as a result of the donation by the telecommunication company, this will be ramped up to 20,000.

Ramaphosa said the staff operating the information centre were the “unsung heroes” working 16 to 18 hours a day to ensure all data related to Covid-19 was tracked.

“I was particularly pleased to see that they have already tracked all hospitals all beds that are available all B&B and hotels can be utilised for isolation centres, quarantine centres,” he said.