South Africa Extends Curfew As COVID-19 Cases Surge

South Africa tightened coronavirus restrictions on Tuesday, extending a curfew and limiting alcohol sales in the face of a surge in infections over the past two weeks.

The country, the worst affected by the pandemic on the continent, has seen the daily figures for new cases double over the past two weeks, while hospital admissions have climbed by nearly 60 percent over the same period.

The spike comes as South Africa struggles to roll out its inoculation programme.

It announced at the weekend that it would discard two million of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine following contamination concerns at one of the US drugmaker’s sites.

“A third wave of infections is upon us. We have to contain this new wave of infections,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation. 

The curfew has been extended by an hour and will run from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am while restaurants and bars will have to close an hour beforehand.

Retail alcohol sales will be restricted to daytime from Monday to Thursday.