With the reduction in cases of Covid-19 in the country, the President has announced that there will be a relaxation in the national lockdown measures that are in place across the country. We have the details of the relaxed restrictions and the news lockdown level.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the national lockdown level will be relaxed. Because the number of new cases of Covid-19 has dropped the national Cabinet has decided on a relaxation on a number of the restrictions that are in place.
The country will move to adjusted Level 1 from midnight on Thursday.
Curfew will change and will now be from midnight to 4am.
Restaurants, bars etc will need to close at 11pm to allow employees and patrons to travel home..
Maximum number allowed indoors will increase to 750 and 2000 outdoors.
Where the venue is too small for these numbers they will be limited to 50% of the venue.
Those allowed to attend a funeral will increase to 100.
Sale of alcohol for onsite and offsite will be permitted according to normal rules – except that not alcohol may be sold after 11pm.
Masks must still be worn at all times in public and not wearing a mask remains a criminal offence.
The government is looking at further relaxation of restrictions for sporting and culture events and further announcements will be made about this in the future.
Ramaphosa also explained that he had spoken to the UK Prime Minister about that country’s decision to keep South Africa on their ‘red list’ which makes travel to and from South Africa difficult for Britons.
“Earlier today I had a call with the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss this matter. I put South Africa’s case to him, which he understood very well. We both agreed that decisions of this nature should be informed by science and are hopeful of a positive outcome when the issue comes up for review in the coming days”.
About alert system
The five-level COVID-19 alert system has been introduced to manage the gradual easing of the lockdown.
This risk-adjusted approach is guided by several criteria, including the level of infections and rate of transmission, the capacity of health facilities, the extent of the implementation of public health interventions and the economic and social impact of continued restrictions.
- The country is on adjusted alert level 1 from 01 October 2021.
- The country is on adjusted alert level 2 from 13 September 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 3 from 26 July to 12 September 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 4 from 28 June to 25 July 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 3 from 16 June to 27 June 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 4 from 16 June 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 2 from 31 May to 15 June 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 1 from 1 March to 30 May 2021.
- The country was on adjusted alert level 3 from 29 December 2020 to 28 February 2021.
- The country was on alert level 1 from 21 September to 28 December 2020.
- The country was on alert level 2 from 00h01 on 18 August 2020.
- The country was on alert level 3 from 1 June to 17 August 2020.
- The country was on alert level 4 from 1 to 31 May 2020.
- The country went into lockdown from midnight 26 March to 30 April 2020. (Alert level 5)
Criteria for determination of alert levels
Alert levels determine the level of restrictions to be applied during the national state of disaster.
(a) ‘Alert Level 1’ indicates a low Covid-19 spread with a high health system readiness;
(b) ‘Alert Level 2’ indicates a moderate Covid-19 spread with a high health system readiness;
(c) ‘Alert Level 3’ indicates a moderate Covid-19 spread with a moderate health system readiness;
(d) ‘Alert Level 4’ indicates a moderate to a high Covid-19 spread with a low to moderate health system readiness;
(e) ‘Alert Level 5’ indicates a high Covid-19 spread with a low health system readiness.
The Ministerial Advisory Committee must advise the Minister of Health regarding which Alert Level should be declared nationally, provincially, in a metropolitan area, or a district, when taking into account
(a) the epidemiological trends of Covid-19 infections;
(b) the health system capacity in a specified area to respond to the disease burden; and
(c) any other factor that would influence the level of infection, hospitalisation and mortality.
Epidemiological trends includes a consideration of the trends in the number of tests done, number of persons screened, number of positive cases, number of recoveries and the demographic profile of the positive cases.
Health system capacity includes a consideration of the number of facilities available to support Covid-19, bed-occupancy levels for the various levels of care, human resource capacity, equipment and related resources.