Some people may choose or have the luxury to self-isolate. Other, particularly younger, households may weigh the risk of joblessness and hunger over Covid, and therefore choose to keep working.
In his insightful book, The Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell opens with the prescient warning: “Dangers to society may be fatal, without being immediate.”
And indeed, extended hard lockdown has exposed South Africa to many such fatal dangers, causing more problems than it has solved. It is a gross overreaction by an ANC government that has overreached its powers and continues to overestimate its capabilities.
Over the coming months as the virus peaks, pressure on South Africa’s health system will rise rapidly.
We should continue to build healthcare capacity and take reasonable, targeted measures to slow the spread of the virus and protect high-risk individuals.
But this real and immediate health challenge should not constitute reason for government to continue with widespread hard lockdowns (levels 4 and 5) and it should not let government off the hook for its disastrous handling of the virus situation over the past six weeks.
There is much to suggest that extending hard lockdown has political rather than health motivations.
But even if well-intended, there are unintended consequences causing social damage on a scale that dwarfs the covid risk. Already, millions of people have been left destitute.
Millions will suffer and die prematurely. And responses to many other health risks, such as to tuberculosis, have been undermined.
As Sowell notes: “Doing good on some problem right under one’s nose is not enough in a world of constrained options and systemic interactions, where the overlooked costs of immediate benevolence take their toll elsewhere.”
The burden of economic devastation will be borne disproportionately by the poor and by young people, who have their whole lives ahead of them. For their sakes, we can and must do better going forwards.
Specifically, we cannot continue with hard lockdowns in large parts of South Africa, even if infection is spreading there.
In his address to the nation on Sunday, Ramaphosa claimed: “The groups we consulted are as diverse and varied as the South African people themselves, and all agree that we acted appropriately and decisively to slow the spread of the virus.”
This is simply not true. Diverse and varied groups, including the DA, have pointed out that many lockdown regulations have no bearing on the Covid risk whatsoever – they do nothing to slow transmission. This itself gives the lie to Ramaphosa’s claim.
Yet it’s not just individual regulations, but the hard lockdown in its entirety that has been inappropriate as a covid response, beyond the first 3-weeks.
The DA and many civil society groupings have clearly voiced their opposition to it.
Yes, government acted decisively in declaring the initial 3-week lockdown and South Africans broadly supported it.
Back then, Covid death projections for South Africa were much higher than they are now (350?000 then versus 40 000-45?000 now) and we knew very little about the disease.
It made sense to err on the side of caution.
Furthermore, there was a commitment by government to “bridge” people and struggling businesses across this 3-week divide. Long-term economic destruction was not an inevitable outcome.
But the past six weeks of hard lockdown have been a cataclysmic mistake on the part of the ANC government.
They have failed to adjust their response to new information, in particular (1) falling fatality projections and (2) mounting evidence that Covid is not a major threat to healthy 0-70-year-olds.
As fatality projections plummeted, government’s Covid response became disproportionate, as if saving lives from Covid is more important than saving lives from other risks.
South Africa already has over 60?000 deaths per year from tuberculosis, also transmitted through airborne droplets. (This will likely be higher this year, since testing for TB has dropped by 50% during lockdown.)
So it is wholly irrational and inappropriate to cripple our economy by shutting it down without life support for over two months, for a worst-case scenario of 45?000 Covid deaths.
The longer the lockdown progresses, the greater and more irreversible the economic destruction. By week 4, it had already become clear that government’s economic relief promises were being broken.
Indeed nine weeks in, 3.5 million people still await their promised R350 Covid grant, while government has failed on its UIF and TERS commitments.
And even if government had kept its side of the social contract, it is wholly inappropriate to lump so much debt on our children and future generations.
Furthermore, even as it became clear that healthy 0-70-year-olds have little to fear from Covid, the government failed to change its strategy to one of protecting the high-risk group while allowing the rest of society to continue operating.
The latest CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) risk projections are that 35% of cases are asymptomatic and that 0,4% of all symptomatic cases are fatal, with this number at 0.05% for those under 50, giving those under 50 with symptomatic infections a 99.95% chance of survival.
Not only did the ANC government fail to respond to evolving Covid risk projections, they also failed to keep their side of the social contract when they asked South Africans to forego their freedoms and livelihoods to buy government time to prepare hospitals.
Hospital preparation has been inadequate, which is why there has been very little reporting on it, other than in the Western Cape.
Ramaphosa has made much of government’s “risk-adjusted” response.
And indeed, managing Covid for an optimal outcome is all about striking the right balance between all the myriad risks we face and therefore making the optimal trade-off decisions.
In line with its guiding ideology, the ANC government has chosen to centrally control every aspect of the Covid response.
The implicit assumption is that a small group of ANC politicians can better assess the complex risk landscape and thereby drive a better response centrally, than can society itself, through the aggregated risk assessments of each household.
Far better would be for government to have been transparent with all the available data and information, and to have provided a reasonable set of safety regulations (physical distancing, masks where physical distancing not possible, sanitising) for all to follow.
Thereafter, each household, with intimate knowledge of its own risk landscape, should have had more freedom of decision-making as to how to respond.
Some people may choose or have the luxury to self-isolate. Other, particularly younger, households may weigh the risk of joblessness and hunger over Covid, and therefore choose to keep working.
Overall, a far more appropriate Covid response is reached in this way, since the aggregated risk assessment is far better refined, and thus the trade-off decisions far less damaging.
No matter how Ramaphosa spins it, and whatever the intention behind the ANC government’s lockdown, we must judge it on its results. It was a terrible mistake that should not be extended or repeated.
Ultimately, the ANC government remains the greatest risk to South Africa’s overall well-being.