President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday it was time for a massive clean up campaign throughout South Africa in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at Archie Gumede House in Mayville, Durban, following a provincial command council briefing by KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala on the response to the coronavirus, Ramaphosa said additional hygiene measures were necessary.

South Africa has been on a nationwide lockdown since March 27 to contain transmissions of the coronavirus, but shifted to a lower gear from May 1 which saw the easing of regulations, allowing some activity -- including some business operations -- to resume.

“The time – as we move down to the other levels of the lockdown – is now right for us to clean up our country.  We now need to embark on a massive, massive campaign to clean up South Africa,” the president said on Tuesday.

“Beyond the various levels [of the lockdown], the time would now have arrived for us to clean up our areas, even high density areas. There is just no reason why our people should continue living in squalor."

He reiterated that as far as the virus was concerned, “the worst is yet to come”.

“We are going to get more people infected, but the important thing is that we ensure that we lessen the pace at which infections are taking place. We will be able to do that by readying all of our facilities and ensuring we have social distancing, wearing masks [and hygiene]," said the president.

Ramaphosa commended Zikalala on the provincial government’s response to and management of the health crisis.

"You have demonstrated once again that, faced with a major crisis like this, you are able to do much more than one would have expected," he said, noting how Zikalala and his cabinet had set up the correct structures, allowing the national and provincial government to “properly address the situation we are in now”.

“I am most impressed with the way you have gone about setting up the provincial command council, which is underpinned by the work of the provincial command centre."

Ramaphosa added that the KZN government had even gone beyond that by targeting its response to the virus at a district level.

The province has been using its already established Operation Sukuma Sakhe (stand up and build) project as the basis for its Covid-19 response.

The project is run under the auspices of the premier and seeks to empower communities to take responsibility for themselves and their environments through a series of “war rooms” that include direct community involvement.

The project was initially launched as a response to the high levels of HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal.

Zikalala has come under fire over comments he made about forcefully taking community members who test positive for Covid-19 to government approved facilities for isolation.

The premier quickly backtracked on his words after he was called “authoritarian” and “dictatorial” by the public and labour unions.

Ramaphosa left for KwaMashu township after his Mayville meeting, where he is expected to tour the state-of-the-art Dr Pixley Isaka Seme provincial hospital which has been designated a Covid-19 treatment centre.

He will then make his way to the Royal Showgrounds in Pietermaritzburg to hold a media briefing. The grounds have been designated a quarantine and isolation facility for Covid-19 patients.

As of Monday night, KZN had 1 106 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, out of which 35 people had died while 415 had recovered.