South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday evening a lifting of most anti-Covid restrictions, including the ban on alcohol sales, ensuring that the country had
"largely"
passed the peak of the third wave of the epidemic.
Read also: Covid-19: South Africa lags behind on vaccination
The most affected country on the African continent was since the end of June under the blow of a series of severe measures aimed at slowing the progression of the variant Delta, very contagious, which now dominates the contaminations.
"The latest figures available to us suggest that we have largely passed the peak of the third wave of contaminations, although there are still areas in the country where we must remain very careful"
, assured Cyril Ramaphosa in a speech televised.
The president pointed out that the number of new daily infections, around 12,000 this week, was down 20% from the previous week.
As a result, he announced the lifting of restrictions on gatherings, domestic travel and the sale of alcohol, effective Monday, July 26.
The curfew remains in place from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. and wearing a mask is still mandatory, he insisted, however.
In total, more than 2.3 million people have been officially affected by Covid-19 in the country, including 69,775 who died from it, for a population of 59 million inhabitants.
South Africa, whose economy was already in recession before the pandemic, had put in place in March 2020 one of the strictest containments in the world.
The vaccination campaign started with difficulty in February and only 2.3 million people have been fully vaccinated so far.
