As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa has taken further restrictive measures. Speaking on National TV on Sunday (June 27), the head of state said the country is facing a more contagious third wave caused by the Delta variant.
The “mutant”, he underlines, detected in India is now found in 5 provinces of the country including the Eastern Cape and Gauteng. “Our health services are working to the extreme limit of their possibilities (…), it does not “There are very few beds available in intensive care,” he added, before announcing that South Africa was now at stage 4 of health alert, the last before confinement.
With this in mind, the Rainbow Nation has taken the decision to ban all gatherings except funerals, with a maximum of 50 people who can attend. The curfew already in place has been extended by one hour, from 9:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. GMT) to 4:00 a.m. (02:00 GMT).
South Africa has officially registered 181,815 cases of contamination during the last 14 days (June 14 to June 27). According to the latest updates, the total number of cases has stood at 1.9 million, of which 1.71 million have been cured and 59,900 have died since the start of the pandemic.
According to some scientists, the highly contagious Delta variant is behind the dramatic rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in South Africa. Note that this variant has been reported in 14 African countries and the Beta and Alpha variants have been found in more than 25 African countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Africa.
