Faizel Patel – 30/03/2021
President Cyril Ramaphosa has increased religious gatherings ahead of the Easter break.
The president was addressing the nation on Tuesday on developments in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ramaphosa says while South Africa has made significant progress to bring COVID-19 under control, the country is not yet ready to return to normal life in South Africa.
Ramaphosa also says the country will remain under level one of the lockdown during the Easter Holidays.
The president says the curfew would remain in place from midnight until 4am.
He says the Easter weekend is a time of spiritual significance.
“Attending religious services is important to millions of our people. For Christians, congregational worship is an important part of celebrating Easter. The Jewish community is currently celebrating Passover and the Muslim community will soon be starting the holy month of Ramadan.”
Ramaphosa says he had consultations with faith communities to find mutually beneficial solutions to the challenges of managing large crowds at religious services.
“Following this consultation, it has been determined and decided that religious gatherings over this period will be restricted to a total number of 250 people indoors and 500 outdoors. This is an increase of the numbers we have currently.”
Ramaphosa says if the venue is too small to accommodate these numbers, with appropriate social distancing, then no more than 50% capacity of the venue may be used.
“Congregants should not gather outside their usual places of worship and people must go home and not sleep over after services which is what often happens in non-COVID times.”
Ramaphosa has expressed his gratitude to the faith community who have engaged positively with the government, adding there is a common appreciation that the country must do all it can to support South Africans to exercise their religious freedom and keep South Africa safe.
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