South Africa on Thursday announced that the national lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic will be phased out , with some restrictions likely to remain in force for a very long time.
"When we do stop the lockdown, we cannot do it abruptly - that today it's complete lockdown and tomorrow it's open completely. We have to phase it in, so that there is an orderly move towards normality," Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said at a briefing by the National Command Council (NCC).
The NCC is in charge of leading the fight against the coronavirus which has already claimed 34 lives and left over 2,500 infected.
The Minister was speaking as South Africans prepared to enter a two-week extension of a 21-day lockdown that would have ended on Thursday.
The lockdown regulations prohibit local and international travel; gatherings of more than 50 people, including at funerals; and only essential services may operate under limited conditions.
Citizens also have to remain in their homes and may venture out only to buy food or for medical reasons.
"Probably every week we are going to be announcing which areas are going to be opened, incrementally, and the conditions of those openings," Dlamini-Zuma said.
The minister did not provide any further details on this, but analysts said they expected health services as winter starts in the country, as well as reactivating production lines, to be priorities.
"Industries will have to slowly come on stream," Dlamini-Zuma said, cautioning that not all forthcoming NCC announcements should be construed as lifting restrictions.
"There must be an orderly way of easing the lockdown. For now, it ends on April 30, but even if it ends on the 30th you cannot just open the flood gates," Dlamini-Zuma said, adding that some regulations would remain in place for a "very long time."
The minister reconfirmed the prohibition on the sale of alcohol, with an amendment to the regulations which now also prohibits the transporting of alcohol.
The reinforced regulations on alcohol came amid pleas from the industry to relax the ban, as there have been an unprecedented number of burglaries and thefts at liquor stores across the country since the lockdown began.
Among those arrested and charged for this have been a number of policemen who colluded with tavern and liquor store owners, in one case even escorting three truckloads of illicit liquor with an official police vehicle.
The only alcohol that is allowed to be transported is the one that is used for commercial purposes for our sanitisers, the minister said.
Dlamini-Zuma also shared measures to ease the congestion at South African ports for goods from abroad.
We've now learnt that if the goods have been at sea for many days, the virus will not survive, so there is no need at the ports for the goods that have been at sea for a long time to be sanitised, she said.
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