President Cyril Ramaphosa moved SA from Covid-19 alert level 2 to level 3 on Tuesday evening, as new infections surge across the country and experts warn the third wave will be our greatest tsunami to date. Yet the new restrictions announced by the president are a far cry from the tight regulations SA went through last year.
The new level 3 includes a curfew from 10pm to 4am and restricted alcohol sales — Monday to Thursday from 10am to 6pm — and new limitations to the number of people who can attend indoor and outdoor gatherings.
Restaurants, bars and fitness centres remain open this time and there was no mention of schools, now busy with midyear assessments, shutting down. Interprovincial movement is not affected and tourism institutions can continue to operate. The banning of cigarette sales has not been mentioned for months and the blanket ban on alcohol sales appears to be in the past, not to mention last year’s bizarre regulations under which only certain types of clothing could be sold.
Ramaphosa made a grave plea to South Africans to adhere to the basics: mask-wearing, sanitisation and social distancing. He spoke about our setbacks in the vaccine rollout, many of the more recent problems being no fault of our government.
Even though the high Covid-19 infection numbers are terrifying, the president pointed out: “If we act too soon or impose measures that are too severe, the economy will suffer.”
It is easy to blame the government for a lack of a proper response to the pandemic, but South Africans also need to take responsibility to help tackle this disruptive disease.
Our economy is trying to claw itself back out of what felt like near oblivion last year. Our first quarter GDP numbers were better than expected, with an annualised figure of 4.6%. The growth estimates for this year have been revised upward because of unexpected improvements in some sectors. We have to hold on to that. If we let go, more South Africans will suffer from a double bout of Covid-19 and hunger.
Our government, for all its shortcomings, appears to have learnt from its past mistakes. The first hard lockdown announced last March had a devastating impact on livelihoods. Economist Thabi Leoka says since the start of the pandemic, SA has lost 1,4 million jobs. We cannot afford to see a further rise in our already alarmingly high unemployment rates.
The question is, have South African citizens learnt from their past mistakes? We are inching towards 60,000 Covid-19 deaths and more than 1,7 million infections. Hospital admissions over the past 14 days were nearly 60% higher than the preceding two weeks. Four provinces — Gauteng, Free State, North West and Northern Cape — are officially in the third wave.
Prof Bruce Mellado, head of Wits Physics School in Johannesburg and the provincial government’s Covid-19 medical advisory committee, says high mobility and an alarming decay in people’s awareness of the risk are our greatest foes at the moment.
“From an analysis of social media posts we can tell people are far more indifferent towards and far less aware of the pandemic now than at the beginning of the outbreak,” he told Sunday Times Daily. “There is a steady decay in awareness. In the second wave people were far more adherent to social distancing and mask-wearing compared to now. Spikes in infections point to a lack of non-pharmaceutical adherence and high mobility.”
It is easy to blame the government for a lack of a proper response to the pandemic, but South Africans also need to take responsibility to help tackle this disruptive disease. The plea to go back to basics on Wednesday night has to be taken seriously. The introduction of new yet reasonable restrictions, while retaining space for economic activity, is the most sensible approach for now.
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