News24|On the eve of the Easter weekend, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a 14 day extension of the country ‘s lockdown to end of April. .

South Africa has now 2607 confirmed infections, 48 deaths and 903 recovered.

” There is sufficient evidence that the lockdown is working” said President Ramaphosa.

The number has remained more or less constant.

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini – Zuma has announced on Thursday 16 April that lockdown will be lifted gradually and that restrictions will remain in place even once the lockdown is lifted.

” There is always a rainbow after the rain, after a storm there is calm”.

” Because we are going to be opening the lockdown in an orderly matter, we will be naming the areas which will opened from the lockdown” said Dlamini – Zuma.

“The lockdown can not be stopped abruptly”.

It is going to be one of the biggest challenges for governments, finding that golden midway between the Pandemic and trying to stabilize the economy.

It will require a lot of wisdom and exceptional leadership.

Some new changes:

1. The transportation of essential goods are permitted from warehousing sites to essential services providers with the exception of the transport of liquor.

2. Retail call centres are now considered part of essential services because of work they do around short – term insurance and store accounts.

3. Cooked food would not be allowed to be sold by restaurants yet even takeaways.

4 Plumbers and electricians will be allowed to visit homes to fix broken utilities.

5.IT professionals are now considered essential workers where they assist essential services using technology.

6.The only alcohol which may be transported is for commercial purposes such as hand sanitisers.

7. A person requesting for a permit to attend a funeral must produce a death certificate, a copy of death certificate, or a digital copy of the death certificate to the head of court or to a station commander.

Dlamini – Zuma said the new regulations are mainly an addition to the current regulations which were first introduced before the lockdown was extended.