The Covid-19 crisis may concentrate South African minds to respond to other future problems

The first few days of SA’s Covid-19 lockdown have proved what we already know — that poor South African communities cannot be put in effective lockdown because the prevailing socio-economic conditions simply do not allow it.

I feel bad for President Cyril Ramaphosa because he had little option but to make a radical decision that pleased nobody. When the coronavirus outbreak was on the rise further afield, many shouted that the country should be locked down to protect SA.

However, as soon as there was a lockdown, others began shouting that it was anti-poor.

People criticising the lockdown on the basis that it does not consider the poor miss the vital point that its main aim is to slow down the spread of the disease enough to buy the government time to prepare facilities for the sick.

The lockdown should contain the disease in the wealthier suburbs and also provide some measure of protection to the townships.

In theory, this gives the government time to race ahead and start setting up its medical operations and procure necessary supplies.

In his article “Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance”, Tomas Pueyo writes that to avoid catastrophic numbers of deaths, countries have to put tough measures in place upfront and then figure out the behaviour of the disease so as to manage it going forward.

Pueyo writes “If you hammer the coronavirus within a few weeks, you’ve controlled it and you’re in much better shape to address it. Now comes the longer-term effort to keep this virus contained until there’s a vaccine.”

Now that human movement has largely been slowed down, the government should be mapping out where the highest concentrations of infected people and their contacts are. Targeted testing in those areas will have to be massively increased. If the disease's spread is noted in densely populated areas, it would  become logical that individuals are put into the safety of state quarantine and care.

This means that the best chance SA has is if we build up the capacity for mass state quarantine. Of course at this stage, we do not know how the disease will affect those groups with underlying conditions such as TB and HIV/Aids.

Second, the state may have to rely on community-based healthcare workers, as it has done with the HIV/Aids pandemic. These people will have to be trained to document and report the conditions at a household-to-household level on the ground, especially in areas where the pandemic may be on the increase.

Then you will know what is happening at household level — how many people live there, how many move out and about for work, how many children go to school, how many elderly and sick people live there. Such granular data may help local health authorities to maintain the kind of disease surveillance that helps them anticipate the problems, rather than be caught off guard.

Gauteng health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku reported that his department used cellphone technology to track patients and their contacts. Cellphone tracking gives them hard data they can use to map the likely spread of the virus, and model what a worst-case scenario outbreak might look like.

The crisis has certainly forced government departments and ministers to bring on their A-game. Like never before, they have to speak in clear and direct language so that there is no confusion.

Ministers must say what they mean and mean what they say, otherwise the consequences could be catastrophic. The time for political rhetoric is over.

Imagine if the government took this focused, direct and rigorously informed approach to every social crisis we face.

Maybe the coronavirus crisis will focus us enough to save our country.

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