We have adopted the appropriate hygiene, health status vigilance, social distancing, travel, meetings and remote working protocols in line with recommendations by the World Health Organization, the South African Department of Health and National Institute of Communicable Diseases. 

There has never been a more profound need to respond collectively to the ‘Thuma Mina’ call to individually, collectively and decisively make a contribution to beating this pandemic, commencing with doing what needs to be done to ‘flatten the (rate of infection) curve’ and disrupt the virus from gaining too firm a foothold in our country. As South Africans, we know that we are well capable of doing that and we encourage all to support and co-operate with national initiatives by government, the private sector and citizens in this regard. 

We assure you that while our physical offices will remain open for so long as circumstances permit, all CDHers (even when working remotely), have the necessary systems and protocols in place to ensure that we continue to operate in the same manner as before, as a cohesive organisation and to consult by means of virtual online meetings, and communicate and provide services to you in a seamless and confidential manner. Your data, confidentiality and information security remain, as always, secured by our cybersecurity protocols and systems. While we anticipate some level of initial disruption as we all adapt to the circumstances occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are confident that calm prudence, combined with the necessary agility, will see us through this national crisis. 

We wish you and your organisation strength and fortitude as we navigate this pandemic and will update you should our operational circumstances or any measures, implemented by government under the auspices of the Disaster Management Act, 2002, require that we do so.