The South African government may rescind its decision to relax the coronavirus lockdown to Level 4 after citizens were not obeying the regulations when they came into effect on Friday.
Police Minister Bheki Cele warned South Africans that they should forget about Lockdown Level 3 because they did not deserve it, saying it was “easy” to revert to total lockdown. He said:
I saw this thing of running, I think we will be making some form of recommendation to the National Command Council about it.
Not just that, I saw … people running in clubs, walking with their dogs and they were even swimming – something that is [criminalised] in the regulations.
This is a problem… I don’t know if they are taking this matter seriously, they should be.
The fact that we have arrested so many people who were drinking in their cars tells you that we will have to work hard, and by the way, remember what the president said – if things are not going a proper way, reversal is easy… From what we have seen, South Africa is misbehaving.
On Friday South Africa relaxed the lockdown regulations to allow walking, jogging and cycling between 06:00 and 09:00, among other things.
The country now has 5 951 COVID-19 cases, with 2 382 recoveries and 116 deaths.