Article by: Natalie Müller
President Cyril Ramaphosa has addressed the public today, through a live broadcast at the CSIR building to announce the governments research plans and the generous donation made by Vodacom South Africa to the government, in an attempt to help aid the strain of the Coronavirus outbreak on our health care system.
Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub has handed over a donation of 20 000 (Twenty Thousand) handheld devices to the Government, to assist with the capturing of information and the sharing of real time data of the Covid-19 positive patients and statistics.
The President has expressed that the donation will assist with the tracking of the number of tests conducted, locations and personal details of the positive patients which will assist with the tracking down of the people who may have come into contact with the positive patients.
The President then afforded Vodacom CEO a platform to address the public as a token of appreciation for the much needed donation which will assist health workers in the rapid and efficient sharing of information to the CSIR research centre, which will de handling the data and information of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Shameel went out to thank the President for affording Vodacom the opportunity to make such a tremendous contribution to the country. He expressed the numerous ways in which Vodacom, through its App is creating fun, educational and interactive methods to educate the public about the pandemic and has therefore encouraged South Africans to download the APP on their Android or IOS APP Stores.
Vodacom CEO also went on to announce that they will not only be donating the devices but have pledged to also provide 500 minutes worth of airtime and 5 gigabytes of data to each device.
Ramaphosa stated in his address that he is impressed with the method of research and information in which they are able to attain through the CSIR centre, which enables them an opportunity have an overview on the number of infections and highly infected areas but most importantly, through science and technology they are able to drill down the statistics by Province, District, Municipalities, Wards and even right up to street names.
The contribution by Vodacom will play a pivotal role in ensuring that information reaches the CSIR centre rapidly and will aid the burden of communication between health workers and the research centre to avoid delays in sharing of information.
The President encourages the public to continue adhering to the rules and abiding by the law set out for the lockdown as implemented under the Disaster Management act of 2002 to help curb the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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