Coronavirus will teach SA a valuable lesson

South Africans have always known the country’s health system is not all it’s cracked up to be.

No amount of government spin can hide the fact the country’s health system is itself sick: a shortage of doctors and medicines and poor management or gross negligence characterise the system.

So when the coronavirus (Covid-19) started making its way out of Wuhan city in China to multiple destinations around the world, only the most ignorant optimists believed South Africa was ready to effectively deal with it, and it didn’t take long for the government’s promises of “all is under control” to be exposed as just brave talk.

It would be irresponsible to blame all the public panic on government’s ill-preparedness for the outbreak. The world is a village these days and long before South Africa’s first case was diagnosed, most people knew it was a matter of time before it arrived here.

The panic seed was never a product of government’s lack of preparedness. With an estimated mortality rate of 3%, there is no telling where the situation will end, but one thing is guaranteed, this virus will teach South Africans about themselves and hopefully provide opportunities for government to redeem itself and parts of the health system.

South Africa’s porous borders have not yet proven problematic in this instance because Wuhan, the viral epicentre, is not on the continent. But there is no telling what would happen to the already dysfunctional borders between South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe should the coronavirus prove to be devastating in those countries.

The virus has already exposed how one-sided the much-vaunted link between South Africa and China is. South Africans stuck in Chinese cities since the outbreak are beginning to lose hope that they will be evacuated any time soon.

Had the situation been reversed, with Chinese stuck in South African cities, there is no doubt that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government would bend over backwards to ensure the Chinese government got to rescue every last one of its citizens.

Not South Africa, though. There is no indication that they’re leaning on Beijing to rescue the over 150 citizens still stuck in China and Covid-19 has exposed the fallacy that the ruling party has a direct line to Xi Jinping.

Locally, the failure to secure a site to which the arriving South Africans can be quarantined until declared clear is basic confirmation that this country’s government and health system are nowhere close to being ready for a crisis of this magnitude.

It is a terrible indictment on not only Health Minister Zweli Mkhize but also on the president himself. They must show true leadership and use whatever laws and money are provided for such emergency situations to set up a proper place for quarantine.

Citizens are allowed to be panic-stricken and not always act as they should, but leadership requires clear heads and solid action to calm people.

Covid-19 will teach race-obsessed South Africans that no one race is special in government’s eyes. Citizens are all victims of ineffective government. A virus that is so easy to pass on is the best teacher of the lesson that the private sector CEO living in the suburbs and his domestic helper who comes from an informal settlement are inseparably linked.

Hopefully the painful lessons of the disease will be for the good of all going forward.

Sydney Majoko.

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