After more than 750 days in lockdown in an effort to stave off the Covid-19 pandemic, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the end of the National State of Disaster on April 4, 2022.
After the “hard lockdown” of March 2020 in which everyone, except essential workers were confined to their homes, the lifting of the lockdown brought a huge sigh of relief.
South Africans had faced some of the world’s most stringent lockdown regulations in the early part of the pandemic such as the ban on tobacco and alcohol and other goods in stores.
But as the world came to terms with living and managing the pandemic, South Africa implemented 4 stages of lockdown enforcement which regulated anything from curfew times and the number of people permitted in buildings.
So when Ramaphosa held the last of what had become known as “family meetings” in early April, the nation breathed a collective mask-free sigh of freedom.
Ramaphosa described the pandemic as “unprecedented in our country’s history”.
The declaration of a state of disaster was a response to a global health crisis that posed a grave threat to the lives and the well-being of our people, he said.
“The declaration of the National State of Disaster on 15 March 2020 empowered government to take the measures that prevented many more people from becoming severely ill and saved countless lives.These measures were effective in slowing down the rate of infection, easing pressure on our hospitals, and providing the time we needed to develop the infrastructure, resources and capacity to manage a large number of people who became ill as a result of Covid-19,” Ramaphosa added.
Three months before this speech, the country went through a 4th wave of the pandemic. A total of 33.8 million Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered with 17.5 million adults fully vaccinated.
In announcing the coming end of the Covid restrictions, Ramaphosa said the Disaster Management Act made provision for certain elements of the regulations to remain in place for a limited period for “post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation”.
What that meant at the time was that all regulations and directions made in terms of the Disaster Management Act following the declaration of the national state of disaster in response to Covid-19 were repealed with the exception of a few transitional measures such as:
Wearing of face masks inside public spaces.
Indoor and outdoor gatherings restricted to 50% capacity.
These transitional measures lapsed 30 days later and all regulations including the wearing of masks fell away.
IOL
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