President Cyril Ramaphosa last night announced that a range of venues from sit-down restaurants and hair salons to cinemas and theatres would soon be cleared to reopen, but under stringent conditions.
This followed meetings of the Cabinet, the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) and the Presidential Coordinating Council.
Ramaphosa made the announcements in a television address to the country last night.
Restrictions would be eased for restaurants, accommodation facilities, conference facilities, cinemas and theatres, casinos, personal care services (including hairdressers and beauty services), non-contact sports, and contact sports, but for training only.
Stringent rules would apply. The dates for the reopening of these sectors would be announced soon.
Ramaphosa emphasised that the risk of infection was not inevitable, and urged that people adopt health measures such as wearing masks and regularly washing hands.
He announced that positive cases now stood at 80 412, with 1 674 deaths.
He said of the rate of infection that, before the lockdown, the number was doubling every two days. Under level 5, this fell to 15 days. Infections were now doubling every 12 days.
Nearly a third of all confirmed cases had been recorded in the past week alone, owing to greater movement in society following the move to level 3 of the lockdown.
The Department of Correctional Services said 623 prison staff and 999 inmates were infected, and there had been 12 deaths.
In other virus-related news
- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern placed the military in charge of quarantining people entering the country after ‘an unacceptable failure of the system’ led to two women visiting from the United Kingdom to travel within the country without being tested. Both women had since tested positive. Authorities were tracing 320 close contacts of the women, including those who were on their plane, and in the same hotel during isolation;
- Some 7 000 people in Gütersloh in western Germany have been told to go into quarantine after 400 workers at an abattoir in the town tested positive. The BBC reported that a number of abattoirs in Germany and elsewhere in Europe had been hit by Covid-19. They often relied on migrant labour. Some faced allegations that poor working conditions and cramped accommodation facilitated the spread of the virus. Nearly 9 000 Germans have died from Covid-19, which is significantly less than some other western European countries, including the UK, France and Italy;
- Chile announced a stricter lockdown in its capital after infections nationwide soared above 200 000. Chile has also recorded 3 383 deaths. Brazil reported almost 35 000 new cases, its highest daily figure;
- In Britain, the Institute for Government (IfG) has found that about 14% of the UK’s labour force, or some 4.8m people, are claiming benefits. Close to a million of those are still in employment, the IfG says. In the United States, by comparison, around 25% of the workforce have claimed for unemployment support since mid-March; and
- Israeli researchers say they have created a reusable face mask which cleans itself with heat, according to a BBC report. The mask has a USB port which connects to a power source and heats its inner layer of carbon fibres by up to 70C, a temperature high enough to destroy coronavirus. The process takes about 30 minutes.