South Africa's coronavirus cases jump above 700

The number of infection cases in South Africa has risen to 709, from 554 on Tuesday, health minister Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday.

"We are now at 709 cases," he said, Report informs citing Reuters.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a nationwide lockdown for 21 days from midnight on Thursday, March 26, in a bid to halt the spread of the Covid-19 virus and "save the lives of hundreds of thousands of our people."

Emergency personnel, health workers, the army, police, and companies involved in the production of food and medicine would be exempt from the lockdown, in terms of which "individuals will not be allowed to leave their homes except under strictly controlled circumstances."

A new coronavirus outbreak emerged in late December 2019 in Wuhan, the most populous city in central China.

As the Covid-19 is raging throughout the planet, countries are scrambling to fight the pandemic.

On February 11, the WHO officially named the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as Covid-19, and on March 11, declared it a pandemic.

Meanwhile, China plans to lift a two-month quarantine in Hubei. According to local specialists, had the decision to isolate the province been delayed for five days, the area intensively affected by the virus could have been three times as large as now. It would have subsequently raised the death toll multifold.