'We can’t keep on for much longer without any football, rugby, music festivals and so on, but a gradual kind of relaxation with more activity is on the cards,' said Phaahla.
people will have to carry on wearing masks, sanitising, social distancing and limiting the size of gatherings.
He said the health ministry is trying to find a way of enforcing regulations to avoid overwhelming health facilities, as well as a legal framework that supports them without the Disaster Management Act. “We need to find a formula which says it is still in your best interest, in certain conditions, to at least have your mask on. And hand hygiene is important, not only for Covid-19. As long as we have circulation of the virus, especially indoors, we are going to have to continue [social distancing],” said Phaahla.
“Even if you have 1% of seriously ill people when you have 200,000 infections a day, it’s a big number and can overwhelm health facilities and become a challenge ... So we are trying to find the correct combination and legal framework without the Disaster Management Act,” he added.SA now has “room for flexibility” to balance the virus with the needs of the economy.
“We don’t know what the next wave or variant will look like. The virus is changing and we need to adapt to it. We need to balance it with the needs of the economy. We now have room for flexibility,” said Abdool Karim. “If we were highly vaccinated, we could allow some lighter regulations,” he said.