POLL | Which lockdown restrictions should be scrapped next?

The lifting of the midnight curfew by the cabinet has raised hopes that more lockdown restrictions may be scrapped in the near future. 

The presidency on Thursday made an unexpected but welcomed announcement about a cabinet decision to lift the curfew.

Under alert level 1, the curfew was in place from 12 midnight to 4am. The curfew was first introduced in March 2020.

The presidency said on Thursday the decision to lift the curfew was due to the trajectory in the infections, the availability of vaccines and the capacity of the public health system to deal with Covid-19 cases. 

“Based on the trajectory of the pandemic, the levels of vaccination in the country and the capacity within the health sector,” the cabinet decided to make these changes to adjusted alert level 1 with immediate effect:

• The curfew is lifted. There will therefore be no restrictions on the hours of movement of people.
• Gatherings are restricted to no more than 1,000 people indoors and no more than 2,000 people outdoors. Where the venue is too small to accommodate these numbers with appropriate social distancing, then no more than 50% of the capacity of the venue may be used. All other restrictions remain in place.

Other restrictions, however, including restricted gatherings, mask-wearing and social distancing, remain.