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President Cyril Ramaphosa praised the Scientific and Industrial Research Council (CSIR), saying that the work being done there is helping the country stay ahead of the Covid-19 curve.
On Thursday, Ramaphosa visited the CSIR offices in Pretoria, which is also where the Department of Health data center was established.
This is where the virus, which has killed 18 South Africans and infected 1,845 more, is being tracked across the country.
“As a nation, we should be proud to have an institution like CSIR that is always trying to be at the forefront in terms of providing solutions for the nation to use,” he said.
Ramaphosa, who was shown how the virus is scanned in real time, described the scientists as “unrecognized heroes,” adding that he had heard that many worked 16-18 hours a day to capture data to help track the deadly outbreak.
“I have been very impressed to see how we can, through the facilities we have here, see the entire country to see how we can obtain data and information on the country’s infection incidents.
“But the most important thing is how we can, using science and technology, take it to almost provinces, districts, municipalities, at the neighborhood level, at the street level, to find out how they track down infected people.”
He said the government’s intention to deploy 10,000 volunteers had been increased and would be doubled, as mobile service provider Vodacom had donated 20,000 cell phones that have an app that allows them to feed information directly to the center and be captured while they select to members of the public for the virus.
Ramaphosa added that the system could monitor hospital beds, as well as B & Bs and hotels that could be used for isolation and quarantine centers.
Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said the service provider had stepped forward when it received a call from the government to do so.
He added that cell phones had 500 minutes and five pieces of data that would allow health workers to send information to CSIR in real time.
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