- The 4am – 10 pm curfew stays in place.
- You can buy alcohol again, but only between Mondays and Thursdays for off-site consumption.
- Children head back to school, but under strict health protocols.
- You can gather indoors again, but only if there are 50 people or less at the meeting.
South Africa moved to adjusted level 3 lockdown on Sunday, July 25, after a month of adjusted level 4 lockdown level regulations were in place. The regulations will stay in place until President Cyril Ramaphosa announces that the rules can be lifted.
So what do the new regulations mean for your daily life? We break down what you can and can’t do.
1. The curfew stays, so you still need to be home by 10pm
The curfew that was in place under adjusted lockdown level 4, remains in place. So, you’ll still need to be home by 10pm and won’t be able to leave home before 4am.
You’ll be excused if you need to attend to a medical or security emergency, if you have been granted permission to travel between 4am to 10pm by a Cabinet member or have a permit.
You can also break the curfew if you need to travel on a flight which requires you to get to an airport, or travel from it, between 4am and 10pm, provided that you have a valid boarding pass or airline ticket with you that proves you would need to be on the flight.
Read more: Lockdown cheat sheet: Adjusted level 4 extended until 25 July
2. You can go to a funeral or religious gathering, but there are rules
Under adjusted level 4 lockdown all indoor gatherings were banned, so you couldn’t go to church, the mosque or restaurants. This is now allowed, but you’d need to stick to the rules:
- Only 50 people are allowed at indoor gatherings — if you go for a drink or to worship inside a building, you cannot do so if there are more than 50 people. The adjusted level 3 lockdown rules say it’s a criminal offence to enter a venue if you could “reasonably have known or suspected that the number of persons attending exceeds” the allowed number of attendants. If you get caught you can be fined or go to prison for up to six months — and these rules apply to any indoor gathering, so although you can go to the gym under alert level three lockdown, only 50 people at a time can be there.
- Up to 100 people can attend outdoor gatherings, and the same rules and punishment that apply to indoor gatherings are valid here.
- In the case of funerals, only 50 people can attend and night vigils and after-funeral gatherings are still not allowed.
3. You can buy booze again, but you’d need to plan ahead
The ban on alcohol sales has been eased, but If you’d like to have an on-site sundowner, you’d need to plan ahead, because restaurants and pubs have to stop serving alcohol by 8pm (restaurants can operate until 9pm, but no alcohol is allowed after 8pm).
Want to buy a bottle of wine from a supermarket or liquor store? Weekends and public holidays won’t work, but you can purchase alcohol from Mondays to Thursdays between 10am and 6pm.
4. Want to travel to Gauteng for a holiday?
Under adjusted level four lockdown this wasn’t allowed, but you’re now free to visit Egoli and its surroundings for leisure again — mostly because SARS-CoV-2 infections (the virus that causes COVID-19) have decreased significantly in the province.
5. Your kids can go to school — but they’d have to adhere to strict health protocols
Mask wearing and social distancing continues to be compulsory at schools — you’d need to keep track of rules announced by the education department which your child would have to follow.
Read more: [VIDEO] How face masks protect you against COVID-19
6. It remains a criminal offence not to wear a mask
The general safety measures we’ve grown accustomed to are still part of the protocol of being outside: sanitise, practice social distancing and wear a face mask. Masks cover the nose and mouth. Everyone in public, and making use of public services such as transport, is required to wear masks. Only children younger than six-years old and socially distanced people doing vigorous exercise are exempt from wearing face masks in public. Failing to wear a mask in public could lead to a fine or imprisonment of six months.
Want to read the full gazetted regulations? Download them here.
