Covid-19: South Africa lowers its health alert level
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa receives a first dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine at Khayelitsha hospital near Cape Town on February 17, 2021. REUTERS - POOL
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In recent weeks, the peak of its second wave of the epidemic has been passed, and the vaccination campaign has now been launched among health personnel.
With the slowdown in contaminations, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced further easing of restrictions on Sunday evening.
South Africa, so far in health alert level 3, has since Sunday moved to level 1.
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With our correspondent in Johannesburg
,
Claire Bargelès
The country now registers less than 2,000 new cases per day, and hospitals now have room to receive patients.
It is therefore time, according to Cyril Ramaphosa, to relax the restrictions a little more ...
“
The curfew now extends from midnight to 4 am.
Gatherings will now be permitted.
During an indoor gathering, a maximum of 100 people will be tolerated;
250 outdoors.
"
The return to Alert Level 1 means that most of the remaining restrictions on economic activity have been removed.
We expect this to lead to higher consumption spending, bolstered by the steady recovery in employment.https: //t.co/YAc8A9h2Jt
- Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 #StaySafe (@CyrilRamaphosa) February 28, 2021
The sale of alcohol is also allowed again on weekends.
But the South African president warns: barrier gestures must not be abandoned.
“
The threat of a third wave is still present, as is the risk of new variants of the virus appearing.
"
This renewed freedom is rather good news according to the opposition parties.
And it is accompanied by
the implementation of the vaccination campaign
: “
It has been 10 days since we launched our vaccination program, and more than 67,000
health workers were vaccinated.
We will start the second phase of this program at the end of April-beginning of May.
"
In addition to 11 million
pre-ordered
Johnson & Johnson doses
, the country is expecting 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, not counting those from the Covax platform and the African Union.
To date, South Africa has more than 1.5 million cases since the start of the pandemic, and is nearing 50,000 deaths.
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