South Africa's coronavirus outbreak is going to get much worse, President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned, while announcing that the lockdown measures would be eased to allow conditional sale of alcohol and certain economic activities from June 1. The president has been under pressure to ease the lockdown measures to restart the economy. In an address to the nation on Sunday, Ramaphosa said the first 10 weeks of the national lockdown has left South Africa in a much better state than most other countries that were similarly poised. But most of the country's metropolitan cities, including three in the economic hub of Gauteng province, have been identified as COVID-19 hotspots which will receive special attention. There are now 22,583 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa, and around half of those infected have recovered. A total of 429 people have died due to the COVID-19.

"We have known all along that the lockdown would only delay the spread of the virus, but that it would not be able to stop it. Until there is a vaccine available to all, the coronavirus will continue to spread in our population. This means that we must get used to living with the coronavirus for some time to come. "As scientists had predicted, the infections in our country have now started to rise sharply. One-third of the cumulative confirmed cases were recorded in the last week alone. And we should expect that these numbers will rise even further and even faster," Ramaphosa said. The President said moving to level 3 of the five-tier lockdown will result in opening up of the economy, but cautioned that there are parts of the country where the disease is concentrated and where infections continue to rise.