By Daniel Itai, Cape Town, South Africa
From the 1st of October 2020, South Africa will remove all restrictions on international travel.
This was conveyed yesterday by the country’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, during a televised address of the country’s national COVID-19 update.
“We are now moving to alert lockdown level one from midnight the 20th of September 2020 as the level of infections are now low.
Moreso, we will gradually and cautiously ease international travel from the 1st of October 2020, be it business, casual or tourism but people coming from high risk countries won’t be allowed to enter.
We expect those coming into South Africa to be in possession of their COVID-19 test results which should not be older than 72 hours prior to their arrival, those that won’t be in possession of their COVID-19 test results will have to put themselves in self quarantine at their own expense. We will soon publish the names of countries that we have categorised as low risk and high risk.
King Shaka International Airport, Cape Town International Airport and OR Tambo International Airport are the only airports that will be allowed to operate. Borders that are open now are the ones that will only be allowed to continue to be in use,” said Ramaphosa.
Meanwhile, John Steenhuisen, interim leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is the country’s main opposition party, said he welcomed the move of reopening the country’s borders.
“We applaud the move taken on the reopening of our borders for international travel because our tourism sector needs to get back on track. We need to get our economy going that’s what we are supposed to focus on,” said Steenhuisen.
To date, the southern African country has recorded 653 448 COVID-19 cases with 15 705 succumbing to it and 584 195 recoveries.
@danielItai_zw
