During the national address on Sunday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that South Africa will remain on lockdown level 1 while government discusses the possibility of making vaccination compulsory to access certain activities, adding that a task team was set up to look into making this a reality.
He said that while it may seem extreme to some, engagements with all stakeholders were under way to consider making access to work, events and public transportation vaccination compulsory.
We have therefore been undertaking engagements with social partners and other stakeholders on introducing measures that make vaccination a condition for access to workplaces, public events, public transport and public establishments. This includes discussions that have been taking place at Nedlac between government, labour, business and the community constituency, where there is broad agreement on the need for such measures. Government has set up a task team that will undertake broad consultations on making vaccination mandatory for specific activities and locations. If we don’t address this seriously and as a matter of urgency, we will continue to be vulnerable to new variants and will continue to suffer new waves of infection A number of other countries, including some companies in our country have made vaccination compulsory. I’d like consultation to be made because we need to be able to defend our people,” Ramaphosa said.
His address came after the Omicron variant was first detected in South Africa and Botswana, leading countries to shut down their borders to travelers from the two countries.
Speaking on the travel bans, Ramaphosa hit out at the countries that restricted flights to the southern countries, saying there was no scientific reason for the ban, and adding that it was against the commitment the countries made during the G20 Summit in Rome in October.
“I’m disappointed by several countries that have restricted travel to us and our sister countries in southern Africa. It goes against the commitment these countries made last month in Rome to open up travel and open up the economy. This is also why we’ve been calling for vaccine equity so that all countries have access to the vaccines,” Ramaphosa said.
Alert level one restrictions remain in place such as the curfew from midnight to 4am. Gatherings are restricted to 750 people indoors and no more than 2,000 people outdoors.
No more than 100 people are permitted at a funeral and the sale of alcohol is permitted according to the regular licence conditions, but may not be sold during curfew hours.
Sources: MSN, IOL
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