President Cyril Ramaphosa will today, Thursday, 09 April 2020, visit the Department of Health (DoH)’s COVID-19 Information Centre, a data centre set up to monitor and track the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.

The centre is housed in a secure facility at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria and from where it provides close to real-time analytics, dashboards on the coronavirus outbreak per province, district, local municipality and ward.

A particularly useful capability is the mobile visualisation platform, the Cmore App, used by Community Health Workers to record screening data and symptoms and transmit information to the centre. It enables near live display of the Household Screening and Testing Programme. 

The data and insights generated by the centre are a significant input for decision-making by the National Coronavirus Command Council chaired by the President.

The President will also be briefed on other projects that the CSIR is working on to support the immediate needs of South Africa in curbing the spread of COVID-19.

NOTE TO MEDIA: A pool arrangement is in place for the dissemination of material from the visit.