President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday night dangled the prospect of no further restrictions to South Africans if enough people get vaccinated – and added that a task team will investigate mandatory vaccines.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday that South Africa will remain at Alert Level 1, at least for the next week, after the country experienced a sharp and sudden increase in positive coronavirus cases, mostly in Gauteng.
However, he warned that harsher restrictions would have to be implemented if South Africans failed to increase the vaccination rate.
Last week, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla said the vaccination rate had fallen to below 130,000 a day – a far cry from the goal of 300,000 a day set by the president.
In his address to the nation, Ramaphosa sharply criticised countries that instituted travel restrictions on a number of southern African countries after scientists identified the Omicron variant of the virus in samples from Gauteng.
“The emergence of the Omicron variant should be a wake-up call to the world that vaccine inequality cannot be allowed to continue,” he said.
Between Saturday and Sunday, another 3,220 positive cases of coronavirus infections were identified in SA, with Gauteng, which appears to…