South African economy does not allow for a phased end to national Covid-19 lockdown

Thank goodness the DA is not in charge of making very difficult national decisions on how to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus in SA.

Recently, the party expressed its disagreement with the extension of the lockdown.

At this point the DA is telling us the obvious — lockdown is bad for the economy. We all know this. It is not rocket science.

There are very real risks with crime surging after lockdown, especially as syndicates scramble to recover profits and dispose of stocks of contraband piling up.

The lockdown was scheduled to end in the next three days. Now, look about you and imagine what it would mean for South Africans to begin returning to work this week.

Even though the DA is calling for gradual lifting of the lockdown, in reality, there will be no such thing as a “phased ending” because the nature of SA’s economy does not allow it.

This country is not a Sweden, a South Korea or a Taiwan, with their highly formalised economies and jobs that permit a controlled lockdown release.

The only institutions which can be kept closed are schools, colleges and universities, and perhaps major events such as concerts and sports matches. Even churches and mosques cannot be stopped from gathering once a lockdown is lifted.

The trouble is that for some reason the DA believes it is the only political organisation with any measure of intelligence and “expertise”.

Party interim leader Johan Steenhuisen was throwing about words such as “modelling” and “data”.

The government is taking its expert advice from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, which is constantly surveying and mapping disease outbreaks in SA as well as across our continent, including Ebola.

Who is the DA taking its epidemiological advice from?

If the DA were in charge, they would have gone with the ignorant stances of the Big Western Men — Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

Both of these conservative leaders listened to business and economists and not epidemiologists, with disastrous consequences.

It is ironic that Johnson was callously telling the British public to “take it on the chin”, only to fall sick himself with Covid-19 enough to land up in intensive care.

What Johnson and other politicians forget is that they are human themselves.

Johnson became a victim of his own carelessness, but let us ask, how many more people in the UK contracted the disease and died because of his decisions?

Johnson was lucky enough to receive all the necessary medical attention needed to save his life. Others were not so lucky, especially in Spain and Italy where the sudden wave of infections and patients overwhelmed hospitals beyond the capacity to save every life.

And herein lies the necessity with the lockdown extension — its purpose is to buy government time so that it can be more prepared for the upsurge in disease.

People are going to die of the disease no doubt, but we must try to plan to save lives where possible.

Firstly, the lockdown is to give SA time to amass its medical equipment stockpile in case we have a huge surge of infections in winter.

Secondly, the government and the NICD need to get a much clearer picture of how the disease is moving within the population, especially in townships.

The government needs the time to push its testing drive.

Because the disease only shows symptoms about two weeks in, you now need just the next two weeks to manifest the symptoms of the silent local transmission.

Once we know how far it is in townships, then we can do selective containment and tracking and quarantine.

The DA has a right to critique but it also has to be humble enough to just recognise that nobody knows much about the behaviour of this disease right now.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s job is to choose the least harmful option under imperfect and ever-changing conditions.