President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday night announced that South Africa was moving to Adjusted Alert Level 2 of lockdown regulations, allowing for a number of restrictions on movement, gathering and alcohol sales to be lifted.

Lockdown restrictions will be eased from Monday morning to allow for larger gatherings, longer trading hours for alcohol sales and an extended curfew, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday.

His announcement came as a significant decline in new and active coronavirus infections was noted around the country.

On Friday the Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, announced that Gauteng and Limpopo had both exited the third wave of infections but said the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal still had high numbers of active cases.

Ramaphosa said that while the third wave of infections in South Africa as a whole was not over, there had been a sustained and marked decline in infections nationally.

He, however, added that the incidence rate of Covid-19 in the Free State and the Northern Cape had remained relatively high for several months and that the government would be looking into the drivers of infections in these two provinces “and how to bring them down”.

Changes in restrictions on movement…