South Africa will gradually relax regulations imposed during the current nationwide “hard lockdown” that isdesigned to contain the coronavirus pandemic starting next week on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced.
Ramaphosa said the country’s National Coronavirus Command Council had agreed during a meeting Thursday to embark on a five-stage programme to carry out the slow process of ending the five week lockdown which started on 27 March.
In the televised speech Thursday night, the president said the country is currently on Level 5 of the lockdown, which involves very stringent measures such as the closure of companies and organisations that are do not provide essential services such as those provided by the health sector, supermarkets and security forces.
“The action we take now must, therefore, be measured and incremental,” Ramaphosa said.
He revealed that Thursday’s meeting had agreed that, starting on May 1, the country should move to Level 4 of the lockdown, which would allow a slight easing of restrictions such as the partial opening of some economic sectors.
Under this lockdown level, companies in the targeted sectors would be allowed to commence business, but not at full capacity, according to Ramaphosa.
“We have decided on this approach because there is still much that is unknown about the rate and manner of the spread of the virus within our population,” he said.
The country would gradually downgrade the coronavirus threat level until it reaches Level 1, where there will be no cases of the disease, Ramaphosa said.
Currently, South Africa has recorded about 4,000 coronavirus cases, with 75 people killed since the disease broke out in the first week of March in the country.
NM/jn/APA