South Africa's virus cases decline, liquor sales allowed

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's government has lifted a ban on liquor sales and relaxed other pandemic restrictions, reporting that a recent spike in coronavirus cases has passed its peak, the president said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation Sunday night that the average daily number of new confirmed cases over the last week was around 12,000, which was a 20% drop from the previous week.

“The latest figures suggest that we have largely passed the peak of the third wave of infections, although there are areas in the country where we still need to be concerned because the rates of infection have not yet shown signs of decline,” Ramaphosa said.

The government is allowing retail alcohol sales to resume from Monday through Thursday, while bars and restaurants also will be permitted to sell alcoholic beverages. Schools have fully reopened, and social and religious gatherings are again allowed for a maximum of 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors. A nighttime curfew has been reduced to 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Ramaphosa also announced the reinstatement of a monthly relief grant of 350 rand ($23.50) for unemployed South Africans until next March. An estimated 2 million jobs have been lost since last year due to the pandemic, according to the country’s official statistics.

While new confirmed cases are declining in South Africa, many other countries in Africa are seeing increased COVID-19 cases, driven by the delta variant.

To accelerate its mass vaccination campaign, South Africa will start giving shots on weekends and will make them available to younger residents ages 18 and above starting September 1. Currently, vaccines are limited to people 35 and up.

“In the coming weeks, we will substantially increase the rate of vaccination,” said...