EDITORIAL | Hey, parents, keep your kids at home

German scholar Bodenstein defined dolus eventualis as: “The effect caused by the wilful act or inaction is foreseen as a possible consequence, but the agent neither wishes it nor aims at it.”

The controversial legal principle most famously raised in the Oscar Pistorius murder case is what comes to mind when, despite attempts to buttress ourselves against the third wave already ravaging parts of SA, we are left incensed or baffled by the actions and intentions of some of our citizens.

“We must take more responsibility. We must take responsibility for our children’s actions. We can’t allow our children to go to parties even if it’s five children or 50 children. At this stage, it’s irresponsible. I plead with you to work hand in hand with the school to bring Covid under control. Keep them at home.”

This was part of a sobering and impassioned plea recorded by Dawie Kriel, the principal of Hoërskool Noordheuwel in Krugersdorp, Gauteng, on his school’s Facebook page on June 2, after five matric pupils who attended parties tested positive and about 35 other matrics were forced to go into isolation after coming into contact with them. 

He made the video after he discovered that matrics were attending “40-day” parties to mark the remaining school days until the end of their schooling career – even though that number was wrong – and that 43 pupils had tested positive for Covid-19 at the school. 

It turns out at least another 42 pupils at two separate schools in Gauteng and North West also tested positive within the same period after attending parties or sleepovers with friends. 

Kriel’s plea was motivated by the innocent – mainly the teachers in their 50s and 60s who are most at risk of contracting the virus – with two already confirmed and one of them in a serious condition in hospital.  

I plead with you to work hand in hand with the school to bring Covid under control. Keep them at home.

Hennie Pieterse, principal of Hoërskool Rustenburg, another affected school, was forced to close his school last week after about 193 pupils were absent last Monday and Tuesday.

“The big problem is that parents are not taking responsibility. They allow pupils to go to parties and that’s where they are picking up the virus.”

What are these parents thinking by allowing their under-18 children to socialise with their friends in numbers and without masks? 

Have they not learnt anything from the 984 matric pupils whose travels to KwaZulu-Natal to mark the milestone celebration of their schooling career at Rage spawned a deadly second wave in the country and brought our healthcare system to its knees?

Do they not consider that the protocols of the pandemic – keeping your distance, avoiding social contact, washing your hands and wearing a mask – are important to save not only their lives but those of the vulnerable and the innocent?

Do they want to be responsible for someone getting sick and possibly dying?

In January this year basic education minister Angie Motshekga said a total of 1,169 teachers had died from Covid-19 complications since the pandemic came to our shores. 

Our teachers have recalibrated the way learning takes place, leading by example despite the threat to their health.

This week we heard that they are next in line to be vaccinated after half a million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were made available to the education sector by the department of health.

Our teachers have recalibrated the way learning takes place, leading by example despite the threat to their health.

But like much of the way the pandemic has played out globally, the rollout of vaccinations in the education sector is marred by uncertainty over when this will happen and possible expiration of said vaccines, and is mired in controversy over suspected contamination of the J&J batch that is awaiting approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. 

Teachers in the interim are counting on this to happen sooner rather than later.

As Basil Manuel, executive director of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA, said, even if there were a slight delay, they were confident the vaccination plan would be rolled out.

“It’s a plan conceived with good intentions, and we must try to make it work come hell or high water.”

Hence the importance of parents reinforcing why their children can’t go to a party. 

Pandemic fatigue is a concept that is frustratingly familiar to us social animals who are now being asked to go against what we were groomed to do since we took our first gulp of air – play nice, make friends and socialise. 

But the implications of not doing so are inescapable, undeniable and tragic.

They are in the countless friends and family WhatsApp chats, work notifications and signatures, posters in malls and garages, health department-sponsored jingles on radio and screaming from billboards.

They are in the daily Covid-19 updates from the department of health, in the hospital beds filling up fast and social media posts of grieving loved ones. 

The pandemic has disrupted every facet of our lives. Our new normal has turned our world upside down, but it needs our cooperation and participation to kickstart a new living order and beat down a resurgence of doom. 

The intention is to reclaim our lives by living responsibly no matter what, and that requires effort from us all.