"Mines are doing well, particularly up to screening, but many mines are not doing well in testing. That is what we must intensify, and we have explained to people that we do not say test everybody, but at the slightest sign of Covid-19, please test.

"Mineworkers must be tested. We are not going to put people at risk because of profit," he said during his visit to Sibanye-Stillwater.

He was in Rustenburg with Health Minister Zweli Mkhize to receive personal protective equipment (PPE) from Sibanye-Stillwater and Old Mutual.

He said if a miner tested positive for Covid-19, that mine would be closed, adding that it would not be considered that the mine produces coal for Eskom.

"If that happens, that mine will be closed. We do not want to risk that. We are making the mines aware that we have to fight a big fight to say, allow mines to operate at reduced capacity, because we are not only protecting lives, we are also protecting that infrastructure so that these workers must not come back and find no mine." 

He said mines should not retrench people, and those that had issued letters to retrench workers have been ordered to withdraw them.

"You cannot retrench workers during a lockdown, those mines have been told to withdraw those letters."

He said many industries were shedding jobs and they should work together with mining companies to save jobs. 

At Sibanye's Bathopele mine, workers' and visitors' hands are sanitised and their temperature is taken before they enter the premises. Their blood pressure is also measured, and their hands are sanitised at every station.

The mine has an isolation site where those who display symptoms of Covid-19 are placed, before being transported to hospital by ambulance.

Mkhize said South Africa's prolonged lockdown would not stop the spread of the coronavirus, but the five-week hard lockdown had managed to delay reaching the peak of the virus.

He said the coronavirus was expected to reach its peak in August or September, but if there had been no lockdown the peak could have been reached as early as July.

He said 511 health workers have tested positive for Covid-19 and that two of them – a doctor and a nurse – have died.

South Africa has recorded 7,572 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, with 148 deaths and 2,742 recoveries.

African News Agency (ANA)