Mmusi Maimane challenges Zweli Mkhize to share how lockdown 'helped flatten the curve'

One SA Movement leader Mmusi Maimane has challenged health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize to produce provincial graphics to show how the Covid-19 lockdown has “helped to flatten the curve”.

This comes after claims made by Mkhize on Tuesday, saying flattening the curve was an everyday effort.

Mkhize said the health department was dealing with internal transmissions and it has seen a 25% increase in positive cases in the past week.

“The number of deaths is showing an upward slope, with the most in the Western Cape,” said Mkhize. “We have done 59,677 tests so far and almost 12,922 yesterday (Monday), with 2,999 of yesterday’s tests have been from community testing."

He said 33% of tests have been done in Gauteng. "The number of tests in all provinces is quite large,” he added.

To date, the country has 24,264 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 524 deaths.

Requesting clarity from Mkhize, Maimane said line graphs should be provided for each province because the “grouping is leading to misleading data”.

He said data should be ungrouped to illustrate the growth trends of the virus in each province.

“Can we kindly see line graphs being produced for each of the provinces so that we can see where there is flattening of the curve, where there is exponential growth, and where there is a falling curve?” he asked.