Dominating Covid-19 news in South Africa this week was the news that masks no longer have to be worn.
When South Africans woke up on Thursday, they learnt that Health Minister Joe Phaahla had ended mandatory mask wearing; limitations on gatherings, including proof of vaccination or negative PCR tests; and Covid-19 border controls for people entering the country.
The amended health regulations, which have now been repealed, were promulgated in May to manage the fifth wave outside the National State of Disaster.
Relief for tourism industry
As South Africans gave a sigh of relief at the announcement, so did the tourism and hospitality industry.
“The restrictions on gatherings, in particular, have been onerous on the gaming, hospitality, conferencing and eventing industries,” says Graham Wood, Sun International Group COO for Hospitality.
“The relaxation of the regulations will have a positive effect on tourism, and we are hoping for an accelerated recovery in international leisure demand from our global source markets,” says Wood.
Also read: SANParks cultural & heritage tourism sites you must visit
Vaccine progress
During Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, MPs rejoiced in the drop in Covid-19 infections.
Cabinet spokesperson Phumla Williams says half of all adult South Africans have received at least one vaccine dose.
“Government aims to use the low-interest loan recently approved by the World Bank to purchase additional vaccine doses and ensure that the nation is adequately protected against potential infections,” says Williams.
Phaahla said in a national address on Thursday that disruptions in social and economic life have been huge.
“People were not able to visit loved ones in hospital and funerals were conducted under strict conditions. On the economic side, there were major job losses and several businesses, especially SMMEs, were closed. Even big hotels and airlines suffered,” said Phaahla.
“Although we did not realise our goal of vaccinating at least 70% of the adult population, we take solace in [the fact] that 36 700 million vaccine doses had been administered by June 22. We believe that the big turnout of the 50 and older age group contributed to the reduced number of hospitalisations and deaths during the fourth wave.”
He said the best performing province in the vaccination programme was Free State, which reached 60% of coverage of its adult population.
Also read: Dropping masks and gathering rules on the cards?
Writing was on the wall
Phaahla said the Omicron variant that drove the fourth Covid-19 wave rapidly affected a high number of people in a very short time and led to increased natural immunity.
As of mid-June, there were declines in the number of reported cases, hospitalisations, the reproductive rate of the virus, the positivity rate and the number of deaths.
“Having monitored the positive direction for more than three weeks, we came to the conclusion that the peak infection, which we concluded was a limited fifth wave driven by sub-variants and not a new variant of concern, was dissipating. On this basis, we approached the National Coronavirus Command Council and the National Health Council with a proposal that the limited regulations be repealed.”
Phaahla said the vaccination programme will be integrated into normal health services.
Masks in schools?
Following government’s decision to lift all the remaining Covid-19 regulations, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says the wearing of masks in public schools will now be optional for pupils and educators.
Read more on The Citizen
Developing countries to produce vaccines
Over a year after South Africa and India originally proposed the waiver of provisions of the Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights treaty in October 2020, the World Trade Organisation granted developing countries the right to produce Covid-19 vaccines.
Read more on The Citizen
Covid-19 statistics
On June 23, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reported 1 050 new Covid-19 cases, which brought the total to 3 990 057.
This represented a 5,9% positivity rate.
The NICD also reported that by yesterday, South Africa had 13 409 active cases and the total number of deaths was 101 704.
The majority of new cases were in Gauteng (40%) followed by Western Cape (15%).
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