Government has declared seven metros and five districts coronavirus (Covid-19) hotspots where lockdown alert levels may be escalated and movement restricted after the country moves to level 3 on June 1.
That's according to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who announced the regulations for the further easing of lockdown restrictions.
She said the metros were Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Buffalo City, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, and Nelson Mandela Bay. The affected districts are West Coast, Overberg, and Cape Winelands in the Western Cape, and Chris Hani in the Eastern Cape and iLembe in KwaZulu-Natal.
Dlamini-Zuma confirmed that these regions would also move to level 3 lockdown on Monday, but added they could be subjected to "higher level restrictions, including restricting movement and to and from hotspots", should other interventions to reduce the rate of transmission fail.
The new regulations lift the night-time military curfew, extend the permitted exercise time to 6 pm and allow the sale of alcohol from Mondays to Thursdays, but maintains the controversial ban on the sale of cigarettes.
It also keeps in place the ban on inter-provincial travel, except for those who have permits to allow them to work in another province or attend a funeral. Travelling between metropolitan areas, districts and hotspots is also not allowed, except for work, schooling and funerals and moving to a new residence.
There are currently just under 26,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases in South Africa, with almost two-thirds of cases registered in the Western Cape, which incorporates three of the districts listed as hotspots.
The government this week said its efforts would be focused on ensuring that the transmission rate in these areas was curbed through an aggressive tracing and isolation programme to ensure that it was not replicated across the country.
Under the new regulations, restrictions on religious gatherings were relaxed, but people may not congregate in groups of more than 50 at a time and had to remain at a distance of 1.5 metres from each other. Should the place of worship be too small to accommodate that number at that distance, the group had to be smaller, Dlamini-Zuma said.
Besides these, funerals, and work, the only other gatherings that would be allowed were agricultural auctions and professional, non-contact sports matches. Only sporting officials and television crews would be allowed, and no spectators.
Bars, gyms, hotels, beaches, museums, cinemas, theatres, conference centres, and public parks would remain closed during level 3 of the lockdown.
National borders would remain closed, except for the movement of goods through ports, the repatriation of citizens, and humanitarian missions. Travel by diplomats and members of international organisations would be allowed.
The ban on evictions from rented homes would fall away under the new regulations, the minister said, for the reason that rental income was recognised as a vital source of income. However, the process had to be sanctioned by a court as fair.
- African News Agency (ANA)
