South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday that the country will tighten COVID-19 restrictions due to a surge of new infections. 

Ramaphosa said in a press conference that the country will be placed on an “Adjusted Alert Level 2” – out of five – starting on Monday, which means that a curfew will be in place from 11 p.m to 4 a.m. 

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Non-essential businesses like restaurants, bars and fitness centers will be closed at 10 p.m., according to Ramaphosa’s statement. Gatherings in the country will be limited to 100 people indoors and 250 people outdoors. 

Ramaphosa also said that provinces of Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Gauteng are on the threshold of a third wave of infections. 

“Because rates of infection have been low for some time, and because we are all suffering from pandemic fatigue, we have tended to become complacent,” Ramaphosa said in his statement. 

South Africa is seeing a surge in coronavirus infections, recording an average of 3,745 daily cases over the past week. Ramaphosa said the number marked an increase of 31 percent over the previous week and 66 percent over the week before that.

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“While the country is headed towards a third wave of infections, we do not yet know how severe this wave will be or for how long it will last,” he said, urging people to “think about all the people we come into contact with each day and do everything we can to limit those contacts.”

Since the pandemic started, there have been more than 1.6 million COVID-19 cases and 56,000 deaths in the country, according to The Associated Press.

About 963,000 people in South Africa have received their vaccine shots.

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