Zindzi Mandela succumbed to Covid-19, says family
What you need to know:
- That same stark lesson is being argued by the great majority of teachers who returned to classroom learning in early June, and who are deeply unhappy with plans for further re-opening amid repeated outbreaks in schools.
Zindzi Mandela, youngest daughter of former South African President Nelson Mandela and anti-apartheid activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, tested positive for Covid-19 the day she died.
This fact, widely known informally but initially not confirmed, was made public by the Mandela family as the Covid storm engulfing the country threatened to close schools again – perhaps for the rest of the academic year.
The confirmation that she tested positive on the last day of her life came in spite of the Mandela family’s aversion to discussing their members’ health in public, a practice which arose in the final years of Madiba’s life when there was much speculation over his health.
Ms Mandela, who was the country's Ambassador to Denmark, died in a Johannesburg hospital in the early hours of Monday morning, aged 59.
“Simply by virtue that there was a positive test, we are therefore obligated to function and work within the framework of the existing regulations related to such cases,” her son Zondwa Mandela said.
She will be buried on Friday.
Her death has brought home to even the most reluctant South Africans the necessity of taking the pandemic seriously and that no-one, regardless of their station and status, is immune from its worst effects.
That same stark lesson is being argued by the great majority of teachers who returned to classroom learning in early June, and who are deeply unhappy with plans for further re-opening amid repeated outbreaks in schools.
The task force appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to deal with the pandemic has admitted that there have been hundreds of incidents among SA’s 26,000 schools but insists that these were “only a small percentage” and that, in many cases, schools were re-opened after a few days and deep cleansing.
But teachers and many parents are still not happy.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s union ally, the SA Democratic Teacher’s Union (SADTU), has previously said that it would pull all its members from classes if re-opening proved unsafe.
