The President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, said during his briefing on November 28 that vaccination is vital to ensure the return of our economy to full operation.
Ramaphosa has announced that the country will stay on Alert Level 1 and the National State of Disaster will remain in place.
The sale of alcohol is still permitted, the situation will be reviewed in the next week to decide whether the regulations need to be adjusted.
“We will closely monitor infection rates and hospitalisation over the coming days and will review the situation in another week,” said Ramaphosa.
This meeting comes as a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was identified in South Africa. “We now know that Omicron has far more mutations than any previous variant … Omicron is readily detected by the current Covid-19 tests.”
Ramaphosa said, “The early identification of this variant is a result of the excellent work done by our scientists in South Africa.”
Ramaphosa said in his briefing that the first, and most powerful, tool we have is vaccination.
“Since the first Covid-19 vaccines became available late last year, we have seen how vaccines have dramatically reduced severe illness, hospitalisation and death in South Africa and across the world.”
He added, “It is by far the most extensive health intervention undertaken in this country in such a short period of time. 41% of the adult population have received at least one vaccine dose, and 35.6% of adult South Africans are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.”
As the number of cases increase, he added, “As individuals, as companies and as government, we have a responsibility to ensure that all people in this country can work, travel and socialise safely.
“We have therefore been undertaking engagements with social partners and other stakeholders on introducing measures that make vaccination a condition for access to workplaces, public events, public transport and public establishments.”
This includes discussions that have been taking place at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) between government, labour, business and the community constituency, where there is broad agreement on the need for such measures.
The government has set up a task team that will undertake broad consultations on making vaccination mandatory for specific activities and locations.
The task team will report to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Vaccination chaired by the deputy president, which will make recommendations to Cabinet on a fair and sustainable approach to vaccine mandates.
He said, “We realise that the introduction of such measures is a difficult and complex issue, but if we do not address this seriously and as a matter of urgency, we will continue to be vulnerable to new variants and will continue to suffer new waves of infection.”
Countries such as the UK, US, European Union members, Canada, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Oman, the UAE, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Seychelles, Brazil and Guatemala, among others, have imposed travel restrictions on South Africa and other countries on the continent.
“We call upon all those countries that have imposed travel bans on our country and our Southern African sister countries to urgently reverse their decisions and lift the bans they have imposed before any further damage is done to our economies,” said Ramaphosa.
He concluded, “We will not be defeated by this pandemic. We have already started learning to live with it. We will endure, we will overcome and we will thrive.”
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