A Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) judge yesterday stressed the urgency of containing the coronavirus when she turned down a bid by two law students to remain quarantined at their Wits University residence after the institution ordered an evacuation this week.

Judge Sharise Weiner said if she allowed students Lerato Moela and Matsobane Shaun Matlhwana the relief they were seeking, 'the university would have to extend such relief to all students in residence' and that this would 'defeat the very object the university and the country is striving to achieve', according to The Citizen.

She also said it would be 'logistically impossible' to allow students to remain in their residences during this period because the cooking and cleaning staff would not be working.

The university this week announced the mid-term break would be brought forward and that its recess would begin on Tuesday after a medical student who had been in contact with a person infected with Covid-19 herself tested positive for the coronavirus.

The students argued that sending home potentially infected students could place their communities at risk.

Full report in The Citizen

The judge noted it was important to highlight that neither Moela nor Matlhwana alleged that they had any symptoms. 

They had initially asked the court to order that the university test all students before sending them home. They later abandoned this request but Weiner addressed it nonetheless.

'Everybody in the world is on the same page as the applicants. We all have had meetings or lectures or been in contact with other people who may or may not have Covid-19,' she said. 'The suggestions by the applicants that the way in which universities should deal with this, firstly by testing all students in residences before they are sent home, is simply not feasible. There are approximately 6 000 students in residence.'

The judge also pointed to the World Health Organisation's warning that 'Africa must wake up and prepare for the worst'.

'Not only SA, but the world, is caught in a maelstrom unprecedented in most of our lifetimes,' she said, 'The containment of Covid-19 is a matter of significant national importance.'

TimesLIVE says that in dismissing the application, Weiner implored the students to follow the protocols set down by the President and health professionals on how to curb the spread of coronavirus, including social distancing.

Weiner said though the students did not get the relief they sought, they should not be saddled with costs.

Full TimesLIVE report