By Sibusiso Mboto 
Jul 4, 2021
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DURBAN – AS hundreds of people made their way to former President Jacob Zuma’s home in Nkandla, acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi Ngubane has expressed concerns about the gathering becoming a Covid-19 super spreader.
Pictures and videos, posted on different social media platforms, showed many people not wearing masks or observing social distancing protocols at the gathering.
The minister wrote on her Twitter account that the mass gathering of people, from different parts of South Africa, could have dire implications for the country, as infections continue to rise.
“I shudder to think of the after-effect of Nkandla gathering, with the current Covid-19 (Delta) variant,” she wrote.
She cited instances where there had been mass gatherings and how this impacted on the spread of the coronavirus.
“After the Pretoria march, court protest in Johannesburg and marches in Soweto, we saw numbers surge to above 26 000 last night,” the acting minister added.
Acting Health Ministry spokesperson Hlengiwe Nhlabathi-Mokota confirmed that the account was that of the acting minister.
Many people on social media also questioned why many people were being allowed to transgress the level 4 lockdown rules, which indicate that gatherings have been banned, in order to limit the spread of the virus.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), 61 507 Covid-19-related deaths have been recorded in South Africa.
The latest statistics from the Health Department show that there are 16 861 active cases in KZN, with 10 730 deaths recorded so far, and 331 406 recoveries.
THE MERCURY