Africa CDC says severe lockdowns no longer tool to contain COVID-19

Africa's top public health official said on Thursday that he was encouraged by the way that South Africa had handled its latest COVID-19 infection wave, adding that severe lockdowns were no longer a tool to contain the coronavirus. "We are very encouraged with what we saw in South Africa in this period," John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told a news conference.

"The period where we are using severe lockdowns as a tool is over, we should actually be looking at how we use public health and social measures more carefully and in a balanced way as the vaccination increases."