{"id":583204,"date":"2022-05-05T07:19:47","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T05:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=583204"},"modified":"2022-05-05T07:33:35","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T05:33:35","slug":"here-are-the-new-covid-rules-and-restrictions-for-south-africa-including-mask-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/583204\/here-are-the-new-covid-rules-and-restrictions-for-south-africa-including-mask-mandates\/","title":{"rendered":"The new Covid rules and restrictions for South Africa &#8211; including mask mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Joe Phaahla has gazetted new regulations under the National Health Act to replace the country&#8217;s transitional measures.<\/p>\n<p>The rules cover a number of key issues including the wearing of masks, gatherings, and travel.<\/p>\n<p>As these are not transitional measures, no &#8216;end date&#8217; has been provided, with the government still considering separate long-term changes under the National Health Act.\u00a0 However, the regulations do give powers to the health minister to lift certain restrictions if he deems they are no longer necessary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Masks\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some of the key regulations around masks which remain in effect include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The wearing of a face mask is mandatory for every person when in an indoor public place &#8211; including public transport.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The health minister has the power to lift regulations around masks when he deems they are no longer necessary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Gatherings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All gatherings are permitted at 50% of the venue capacity:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Provided persons are fully vaccinated and in possession of a valid vaccination certificate; or<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Unvaccinated but in possession of a valid certificate of a negative Covid-19 which was obtained not more than 72 hours before the date of the gathering,.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Alternatively, gatherings are permitted for the unvaccinated and those without tests, but are limited to 1,000 persons or fewer for indoor venues and 2,000 persons or fewer for outdoor venues.<\/p>\n<p>If the venue is too small to hold the prescribed number of persons observing a distance of at least one metre from each other, then not more than 50% of the capacity of the venue may be used, subject to strict adherence to all health protocols and social distancing measures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Travel\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Travel into South Africa is permitted provided:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fully vaccinated people must, upon arrival at the land border, produce a valid vaccination certificate; and<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Unvaccinated people must, upon arrival, provide a valid certificate of a negative Covid-19 test, recognised by the World Health Organisation, which was obtained not more than 72 hours before the date of travel. They may also produce a negative antigen test provided it was not taken 48 hours before travel, or a certificate showing they have tested positive for Covid within the last 90 days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Outbound travellers from South Africa must continue to comply with the requirements of the country of destination.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Covid.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/583202\/vaccines-effective-against-new-omicron-subvariants-who-chief-says\/\">Vaccines effective against new Omicron subvariants, WHO chief says<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Joe Phaahla has gazetted new regulations under the National Health Act to replace the country&#8217;s transitional measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":564972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-583204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583204","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=583204"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583244,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583204\/revisions\/583244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}