The President lifts most of the restrictions related to combating “Covid”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday evening the lifting of most restrictions imposed to combat Covid, including the ban on sales of alcoholic beverages, stressing that the country has “Widely” After the peak of the third wave of the epidemic.

Read also:Covid-19: South Africa lags behind on vaccination

The worst-hit country on the African continent since the end of June has been under the weight of a series of drastic measures aimed at slowing the progress of the highly contagious, delta variant, which is now dominating pollution.

“The latest figures available to us indicate that we are past the peak of the third wave of pollution, although there are still areas of the country in which we must be vigilant.”, confirmed Cyril Ramaphosa in a televised speech. The president indicated that the number of new daily infections by about 12,000 this week decreased by 20% from the previous week.

As a result, he announced the lifting of restrictions on gatherings, domestic travel and the sale of alcoholic beverages, effective Monday, July 26. A curfew remains in effect from 9pm to 4am, and mask-wearing is still mandatory, though he insisted.

In total, more than 2.3 million people have been officially affected by Covid-19 in the country, including 69,775 who have died, for a population of 59 million.

South Africa, whose economy was already in recession before the pandemic, had in March 2020 put in place one of the strictest containment measures in the world. The vaccination campaign began with difficulty in February, and only 2.3 million people have been fully vaccinated so far.