• The mayor is also chair of the District Coronavirus Command Council. She is now in isolation and will run the district and hold meetings virtually.
• All 70 councilllors - including traditional leaders, mayoral committee members and Covid-19 command council members - will be screened and tested. 
• Members of the public who may have come into contact with Mayor Thokozile Sokanyile are urged to go for testing.

The mayor of the OR Tambo district municipality in the Eastern Cape, Thokozile Sokanyile, has tested positive for Covid-19.

Sokhanyile also serves as a chairperson of the Coronavirus District Command Council.

She had been taken to an isolation site after getting her results, said municipality spokesperson Zimkhitha Macingwana.

Macingwana said, as part of the precautionary measures, all members of the mayoral committee, councillors, municipal employees and members of the district command council who had came into contact with Sokanyile, would go for screening and testing.

Sokanyile is also a member of the provincial executive committee and provincial working committee of the ANC.

Quarantine

The district authority is also calling on members of the public who met with Sokanyile to go for screening, testing and, if necessary, go into self-quarantine.

Macingwana said: "The Executive Mayor will be working from the isolation site to hold her meetings, and interactions will be done virtually. The Executive Mayor wishes to appeal to all leaders and the community at large to exercise extra caution and to adhere to all Covid-19 regulations - that includes wearing of masks at all times when in public places, washing of hands regularly with soap and water, or sanitising them."

Meanwhile, the municipality reopened operations at its Myezo Park and Prosperity Building after the sites were closed when an employee tested positive last month. Macingwana said the buildings were set to open under strict occupational health standards.

"Mass testing of employees who work at the Myezo and Prosperity buildings was done on the 27 May and will continue on 4 June at Government Printers."

Sokanyile is the latest ANC member to test positive for the virus, after Ngcobo Municipality Mayor Siyabulela Zangqa's results came back positive last month.

Two Chris Hani district councillors, Khaya Bizana and Yanga Zicina, tested positive last week, according to DispatchLive.

On 24 May, Amathole District Municipality Mayor Khanyile Maneli's 58-year-old wife, Matilda Beauty Nontsapho Maneli, died after contracting Covid-19. 

She died at Stutterheim Hospital at 08:30 that day, said family spokesperson Sithembele Zuka at the time.