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President issues festive season warning as tighter lockdown restrictions take effect

This evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa once again addressed the nation with regard to COVID-19 in South Africa, as the number of new daily infections continue to rise. This has resulted in the president issuing tighter lockdown restrictions for alert level 1, as well as adding the Sarah Baartman and Garden Route regions to the hotspot list with Nelson Mandela Bay.

During his address, the president noted that a new curfew will apply for the country outside of the three hotspots, which have stricter ones. To that end curfew begins at 23:00 in the evening and ends at 4:00 in the morning.

The president also urged all businesses, restaurants and shopping centres to operate with this curfew in mind, as well as enforcing the wearing of masks and social distancing within their venues.

The sale of alcohol for home consumption has once again been restricted, with it available from 10:00 on Monday morning until 18:00 on Thursday evening. Wine estates and wineries have, however, been given special permission to operate as normal during this time, as they are deemed to be a crucial element of the economy.

Beaches are also slated to remain open at the time of writing, with the only exceptions being those which fall under the aforementioned hotspots.

Once again, the president has urged South Africans to adhere to the regulations, and limit the size of their gatherings over the festive period, and should they be travelling, limit the amount of people they come into contact with.

With South Africa now in the midst of its second wave of COVID-19 infections, failure to adhere to regulations could have an even more detrimental impact than the first one.

Interestingly though, the president noted that no hard level 5-esque lockdown is on the cards, as the first it took place was purely to adequately prepare the health sector for the pandemic.

Now that it is reportedly prepared, level 1 lockdown restrictions in varying degrees of intensity, appears to be the way forward.

Whether the lack of threat posed by a harder lockdown will see South Africans do their part to limit the second wave, remains to be seen.

To watch the president’s address again, we suggest watching the SABC’s coverage on YouTube here.

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