By Kaya 959 Reporter
President Cyril Ramaphosa has renewed the call for residents to get vaccinated.
Ramaphosa made the remarks during his address to the nation on Sunday night. The new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, continues to see a surge in the country’s new coronavirus infections.
Ramaphosa said a task team has been set up to tackle the issue of mandatory vaccines.
“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.
Ramaphosa said the government is aware that the introduction of such measures is a difficult and complex issue.
However, he said if the issue is not urgently addressed, there will continue to be those vulnerable to new variants.
Ramaphosa added that officials will have a better understanding of Omicron in the next few days and weeks, as more data becomes available.
“Vaccination is by far the most important way to protect yourself and those around you against the Omicron variant, to reduce the impact of the fourth wave and to help restore the social freedoms we all yearn for,” he said.
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Ramaphosa further announced that while the country will remain on an adjusted Alert Level 1:
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There is still a curfew in place from 12 midnight to 4am.
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No more than 750 people may gather indoors and no more than 2 000 people may gather outdoors. Where the venue is too small to accommodate these numbers with appropriate social distancing, then no more than 50%of the capacity of the venue may be used.
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No more than 100 people are permitted at a funeral, and night vigils, after-funeral gatherings and ‘after-tears’ gatherings are not allowed.
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The wearing of masks in public places is still mandatory, and failure to wear a mask when required remains a criminal offence.
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The sale of alcohol is permitted according to the regular licence conditions, but may not be sold during curfew hours.
“We will closely monitor infection rates and hospitalisation over the coming days and will review the situation in another week. We will then need to determine whether the existing measures are adequate or whether changes need to be made to the current regulations,” Ramaphosa said.
The NICD said SA now has a total of 2 961 406 COVID-19cases with 2 858 cases recorded on Sunday. Gauteng recorded 2 308, contributing to 81% of new infections.
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