SA will further roll back restrictions to contain the Covid-19 pandemic from June 1 in a piecemeal exit from the lockdown that will allow the reopening of vast swathes of the economy.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday announced the easing of the lockdown from June 1 to level 3, allowing the majority of industries including finance and manufacturing, to return to work, and lifting the nationwide curfew and the restrictions on exercise.
The ban on the sale of alcohol would also be lifted but not on the sale of tobacco products, which will remain prohibited due to the health risks associated with smoking, Ramaphosa said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa gave an update on the government’s risk-adjusted strategy to manage the spread of Covid-19 in SA on May 24 2020.
“The burden of the lockdown has been most severe for those least able to bear it. Now it is time for most of us to return to work and to resume parts of our lives that have been on hold since the lockdown began,” he said.
“However, I want to emphasise that the easing of some restrictions does not mean that the threat posed by the coronavirus has passed or that our fight against the disease is over.”
SA has been in a Covid-19 nationwide lockdown for eight weeks, causing economists to forecast the worst economic contraction in at least a century.
The lockdown was put in place to curb the spread of the virus but has had a devastating effect on the country’s economy.
Ramaphosa said though the entire country would be moving to a lower lockdown level, there were still a number of hotspots identified where the virus was concentrated and infections continued to rise.
