Salons, restaurants and hotels are allowed to operate under level three, but you're still not allowed to legally buy cigarettes.

And with the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa passing the 80,000 mark, Ramaphosa has cautioned that easing these rules doesn’t mean the pandemic was over.

Ramaphosa said the economy needed strengthening and reopening. This is why he was opening restaurants and hotels.

He doesn’t believe this is counterproductive: “And these activities include restaurants for sit down meals, accredited and licensed accommodation with the exception of home-sharing accommodation like AirBnB conferences and meetings for business purposes and in line with restrictions on public gatherings, cinemas, and theatres to be aligned to limitations of gathering of people.”

Ramaphosa said South Africans needed to work with the government to ensure that the strategy worked.

Meanwhile, according to the latest data from the health ministry, South Africa's coronavirus death toll has reached 1,674.

So far, just over 44,000 people have recovered from the virus here on home soil.

Eyewitness News