{"id":532230,"date":"2021-10-26T12:40:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T10:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=532230"},"modified":"2021-10-26T12:40:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-26T10:40:54","slug":"3-lockdown-scenarios-for-south-africa-including-restrictions-over-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/532230\/3-lockdown-scenarios-for-south-africa-including-restrictions-over-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"3 lockdown scenarios for South Africa \u2013 including restrictions over Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Professional services firm PwC has published its latest economic outlook for South Africa, including forecast scenarios for the country&#8217;s lockdown levels and their likely impact on the economy.<\/p>\n<p>The group&#8217;s economic scenarios for the remainder of 2021 and Q1 2022 are strongly influenced by the third wave of Covid-19 infections. All three scenarios forecast some increase in Covid-19 infections over January and December.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All our scenarios plan for a fourth wave of infections, with varying severity, during the summer holidays,&#8221; PwC said.\u00a0 &#8220;With just over a quarter of adults now fully vaccinated and another 35% having received their first jab of the two-dose Pfizer, the fourth wave should be milder compared to the preceding waves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, PwC expects rising infections in December to prompt more restrictive regulations over the summer holidays.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Considering the volume of vaccines already administered and the current daily rate of injections, we expect it will take another four months to fully vaccinate 70% of the adult population. This implies lockdown restrictions \u2013 even of only at level 1 \u2013 could be anticipated towards Q1 2022 at least.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Upside scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Level 1 lockdown to continue for most of the year, moving to level 2 in December.<\/li>\n<li>No significant increase in infections is seen, and the country moves back to a level 1 lockdown in February and March.<\/li>\n<li>By April 2022, lockdown restrictions are largely lifted, with some specific exceptions, such as wearing masks in public places.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Baseline scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Level 1 lockdown to continue for most of the year, moving to an adjusted level 3 lockdown in December.<\/li>\n<li>Adjusted level 3 lockdown to continue over most of the holiday period, moving to a level 2 lockdown in mid-January.<\/li>\n<li>South Africa moves to a level 1 lockdown in February, which remains in place until May 2022.<\/li>\n<li>By May 2022, lockdown restrictions are largely lifted, with specific exceptions such as wearing masks in public places.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Downside scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Level 1 lockdown to continue for most of the year, moving to a level 2 lockdown in mid-November.<\/li>\n<li>Adjusted level 3 lockdown to continue over most of the holiday period, moving back to a level 2 lockdown in mid-January.<\/li>\n<li>South Africa moves to a level 1 lockdown in mid-February, and this remains in place for the first half of 2022.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/PwC-lockdown.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-532234\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/PwC-lockdown.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/PwC-lockdown.png 525w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/PwC-lockdown-208x300.png 208w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>While PwC&#8217;s predictions are largely optimistic, the group has raised questions around the current adjusted level 1 restrictions introduced at the start of October.<\/p>\n<p>It noted that the South Africa Medical Association (SAMA) had raised concerns about increasing limits on public gatherings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Current rules allow for gatherings of 2,000 people outdoors and 750 indoors versus limits of 250 people outdoors and 100 people indoors when the country was last at level 1 during Q2 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The association noted that this &#8216;could be seen as political&#8217; ahead of the 1 November elections, adding that there is no scientific evidence that the increase in numbers will be a safe practice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/532090\/forecasts-for-south-africas-elections-according-to-economists\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forecasts for South Africa&#8217;s elections, according to economists<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professional services firm PwC has published its latest economic outlook for South Africa, which includes forecast scenarios for the country\u2019s lockdown levels and their likely impact on the economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":384181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,2407],"class_list":["post-532230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline","tag-pwc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532230"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532278,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532230\/revisions\/532278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}