South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday that the country will be entering a strict lockdown amid a spike in the number of cases recently.

President Ramaphosa noted that the cases have spiked 31% high to the previous week and 66% that two weeks before. He also said that the country's major cities including the financial capital Johannesburg and executive capital Pretoria enter a third wave of the Pandemic.

‘We do not yet know how severe this wave will be or for how long it will last,’ Ramaphosa said.

In response, Ramaphosa said that from Monday the nighttime curfew would be extended by an hour to start at 11:00 pm until 4:00 am. A maximum of 100 people would be allowed at indoor social gatherings and no more than 250 at outdoor gatherings. The number of people attending funerals will be limited to 100 people and after-funeral gatherings were banned completely, Ramaphosa said. Nonessential businesses must close by 10:00 pm.

‘We have tended to become complacent,’ Ramaphosa said, warning virus infections were ‘surging again’ at a time when the country moves into its winter months and people were more likely to gather together indoors, likely further increasing infections.

South Africa’s decision to go back to a stricter lockdown reinforces — as the crisis in India has already done so starkly — how the global pandemic is far from over.

‘We have seen in other countries the tragic consequences of leaving the virus to spread unchecked,’ Ramaphosa said, adding, ‘We cannot let our guard down.’