Winde cited a drop in the infection rate, hospitalisations, deaths, test positivity rate and oxygen usage among other indicators as reasons to ease the restrictions in the province.
“Currently, the seven-day moving average for new cases in the Western Cape is 620. We know that we will have officially exited the third wave, in terms of the technical definition, once new infections are at 15% of the peak or 530 cases.
“We are quickly approaching this number. All our other indicators also continue to show a significant decline, including in hospitalisations, deaths, our test positivity rate and oxygen usage,” he said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a decision to move SA to alert level 2 during a national address two weeks ago. He said the government will, after two weeks, review the current restrictions depending on the state of the pandemic.
“He said 14 days after moving to level 2 we should be there. We're just about there. We need to move to level 1,” said Winde.