Today is the day South Africans have been waiting for since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a hard lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19 on Monday, March 23. Then it was described as a “decisive measure to save millions of South Africans from infection and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people”.
“While this measure will have a considerable impact on people’s livelihoods, on the life of our society and on our economy, the human cost of delaying this action would be far, far greater,” said Ramaphosa, as South Africans tried to get their heads around the concept of a lockdown, what it meant and how it would affect them.
Today, we know the answers to those questions.
At the time, the number of confirmed cases in SA had increased six-fold in eight days – from 61 to 402. There had been no Covid-19 deaths yet. The deaths of the first two South Africans succumbing to the disease were reported on March 27. A single death made headlines then; now the number of deaths is reported on in batches as our death toll inches closer to 16,000.
This weekend marked 200 days since the first positive Covid-19 test in SA. Experts speaking to the Sunday Times had opposing views on the success of our hard lockdown. Economist Azar Jammine said it had been “ridiculously excessive” and “far too destructive for overall economic activity”. Dr Paula Armstrong pointed out that an estimated 3 million people became unemployed between February and April. We know the gross domestic product shrank by 51% in the second quarter of this year, a direct result of the lockdown.
But Prof Martin Veller, the dean of the faculty of health sciences at Wits University, described the government’s decision to announce a hard lockdown as “incredibly brave”. He said it ended up saving the lives of thousands of people and showed “how absolutely essential leadership is in dealing with a pandemic”.
This is how we should approach level 1.
It is time to get on with saving our economy. But as SA returns to its long-awaited freedom, there should be room for flexibility in our advance towards post-lockdown life.
No person at high risk of dying of the disease should be forced to choose between earning an income and staying safe.
The basic education department has sent messages to schools indicating that teachers who have been working remotely need to go back to their classrooms.
This means more than 22,568 teachers who were granted permission to work from home because of comorbidities need to return to school on Monday. The concession to work remotely was only applicable during alert levels 2 and 3.
By September 1, 237 teachers and 40 non-teaching staff had died of Covid-19-related complications.
“Alert level 1 means the risk has been brought down to low, hence the risk for these teachers has reduced considerably. They will be encouraged to exercise the same safety measures as other teachers who have been at school,” spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga told Times Select.
He added that if teachers failed to return to work without a medical certificate within 14 working days from September 21, “they will be deemed to have absconded from work and be dismissed on grounds of misconduct”.
This seems like a harsh approach. Both the public and private sectors need to support the move to level 1 but also need to be adaptable where required as we navigate our way around the new normal.
Our leaders need to keep cool heads, be brave and be fair as SA embarks on a journey of recovery.
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