Cyril Ramaphosa will address South Africans on Sunday evening, as the number of COVID-19 cases soars to frightening heights.

It’s understood that the president will announce changes to country’s current lockdown rules.

It has been confirmed by spokesperson Khusela Diko that President Ramaphosa will speak to the nation ‘on Sunday evening’.

The Covid-19 crisis continues to deepen as infection rates rose at a rapid pace this week, with Gauteng overtaking the Western Cape as SA’s epicentre of the killer disease. By Friday night, the national infection rate passed the quarter-of-a-million mark, with 250,687 confirmed cases of Covid-19 reported by health minister Zweli Mkhize. Gauteng now accounts for more than 34% of confirmed coronavirus cases at 87,033, followed by the Western Cape with 76,067 and the Eastern Cape accounting for 46,284 cases.

[Live stream will appear here later on Sunday evening, depending on what time the scheduled start time is confirmed. We will bring you any updates as soon as we have them.]