Among other measures, the nationwide curfew will be reduced from 11pm to 4am, the size of meetings can be increased to 250 people indoors and 500 outdoors and will be reduced even more restrictions on the sale of alcohol. The measures will be reviewed in two weeks, he said.
Ramaphosa said the country now has enough doses of vaccine to cover the entire adult population, with more than a quarter of adults receiving at least one dose.
The president encouraged everyone to get vaccinated to allow the country to return to normal.
“If many people are not vaccinated and remain vulnerable to infection, chances of new, more dangerous variants could arise,” he said.
He added that passports or vaccine certificates “that can be used as a vaccination test for various purposes and events” are being discussed.
Some citizens have reported the proposed vaccine passport
comparing it to apartheid-era enactment laws this required black South Africans to carry a document, known as a “dompas,” to show their permission to be in certain places.
“Vaccine passports? I like my freedom, thank you. You can keep your medical domains. This will end up in the Constitutional Court. There is no doubt,” he wrote
Twitter user Dwayne Esau.
South African researchers have been on the lookout for a new variant C.1.2, which they say has appeared in South Africa, as well as seven other countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania.
A strict lock
South Africa closed strictly in June due to a devastating third wave driven by the more transmissible Delta variant.
In recent days, the wave has dropped considerably in most provinces. The Ministry of Health
reported 3,961 new cases Sunday, an improvement from the
15,036 new cases on June 27th just before imposing the lock.
However, Ramaphosa warned that the third wave is not over yet, imploring citizens to take sanitary precautions to contain the pandemic.
“The third wave is not over yet, and only through our actions individually and collectively will we be able to reduce the number of new infections,” he said.
This comes amid a slow deployment of vaccines across the continent that the president dubbed “vaccine apartheid” in June.
The World Health Organization stated that most African countries are unlikely to meet the global goal of vaccinating 10% of their vulnerable population before September.
