SOUTH Africa’s national state of disaster, in place for more than two years in response to COVID-19, will end from midnight local time on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
The national state of disaster has been the government’s main mechanism for managing the pandemic. Removing it will do away with the vast majority of remaining COVID-19 restrictions, aside from a few that will remain in place on a transitional basis, Ramaphosa said.
“While the pandemic is not over, while the virus remains amongst us, these conditions no longer require we remain in a national state of disaster,” he said in a televised address, referencing far lower rates of hospitalisation and deaths during the country’s fourth wave of infections.
South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy and the worst-hit in terms of reported infections and deaths, has been in an ‘adjusted level 1’ lockdown, or the lowest of a five tier
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