By Annisa Essack
30:09:2021

President Ramaphosa announced that South Africa would move to Alert Level 1 at midnight in his address to the nation tonight.

The South African COVID-19 Modelling Consortium confirmed that the country had emerged from the third wave of COVID-19 infections. The wave was driven by the Delta variant, which was far more severe than the previous two waves lasted over 130 days, two weeks longer than the two previous ones.

This evening, the President informed South Africans that we were recording around 20,000 new cases each day at the peak of the third wave. However, the average number of new cases was around 1,800 a day in the last seven days. There was also sustained decreases in COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths in all provinces.

As the country moves from Adjusted Alert Level 2 to Adjusted Alert Level 1 from midnight tonight, the following measures will apply as part of Alert Level 1:

• The hours of the curfew will change, from 12 midnight to 4 am.
• Non-essential establishments like restaurants and fitness centres will need to close by 11 pm to allow their employees and patrons to travel home before the start of the curfew.
• The maximum number of people permitted to gather indoors will increase from 250 to 750. The maximum number of people allowed to gather outdoors will increase from 500 to 2,000.
• Where the venue is too small to accommodate these numbers with appropriate social distancing, then no more than 50 per cent of the venue’s capacity may be used. This includes religious services, political events and social gatherings, restaurants, bars, taverns and similar places.
• The maximum number of people permitted at a funeral will increase from 50 to 100. As before, night vigils, after-funeral gatherings and “after-tears” gatherings are not allowed.
• The wearing of masks in public places is still mandatory, and failure to wear a mask when required remains a criminal offence.

The Department of Health will be rolling out a vaccination certificate, which will provide secure and verifiable proof of vaccination. It will facilitate travel, access to establishments and gatherings and other forms of activity that require proof of vaccination status. The President added that the approach is informed by World Health Organisation guidelines and aligns with international best practices. Furthermore, streamlining and standardising proof of vaccination would go a long way towards getting several international travel restrictions both from and into the country eased.

The United Kingdom has imposed a travel ban on South Africans by red-listing the country, placing it at a disadvantage, mainly as the UK is South Africa’s most important trading and tourism partner in the Northern Hemisphere. Once again, the President iterated the importance of vaccinations to ensure South Africans welcomed and welcomed tourists back. He said that the most significant priority now is to ensure that the economy recovers quickly to help businesses get back on their feet and create jobs.

The President, today, spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss the matter, and it was agreed that decisions about such issues should be informed by science. He was hopeful of a positive outcome as the subject would come up for review soon.

The national vaccination drive was gathering momentum, with more than 17 million vaccine doses been administered.  Presently, over one-fifth or 8.6 million of the adult population are fully vaccinated.

The President, however, highlighted the concern he felt over the increasing number of younger people being hospitalised and dying from COVID-19 in recent months.

Therefore, it was decided to upscale the vaccination campaign by launching the ‘Vooma Vaccination Weekends’ campaign, a countrywide drive to encourage people to get vaccinated. Those who might not be able to get the vaccine during the week should take up this opportunity.  The campaign begins as of the 1st of October. On Saturday the 2nd of October, vaccination sites around the country. The Department of Health has identified priority districts in each province based on the number of unvaccinated people and the current vaccination coverage in each community.  This will be the first Vooma Vaccination Weekend in a series of outreach programmes.

Ramaphosa also acknowledged the considerable number of volunteers, frontline health workers, community health workers, staff members at the sites, health service managers who had helped, and local leaders’ many initiatives.