Government got beach ban wrong

The National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) have come up with some bizarre regulations over the near 11 months of the various levels of lockdown, but the ban on beaches could take the cake.

How can being outdoors on the beach be more risky than being in a shopping mall, many argued?

Who will ever forget the scenes of Police Minister Bheki Cele and his men in blue lining up to arrest holidaymakers or surfers defying the beach ban due to new Covid lockdown regulations?

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Or Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, having to define what a beach was, and stressing that you weren’t allowed within 100 metres of the high-tide mark.

Average citizens became instant criminals late last year after Dlamini-Zuma and her crew enforced a blanket beach ban in an attempt to curb growing Covid infections.

Now it seems the chance of beach gatherings becoming super-spreader events was minimal.

At least if you listen to a few experts in England, who have poured cold water on the dangers of going to the beach.

In The Guardian, Edinburgh University epidemiologist Prof Mark Woolhouse told MPs: “There were no outbreaks linked to public beaches. There’s never been a Covid-19 outbreak linked to a beach, ever, anywhere in the world, to the best of my knowledge.”

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Dr Müge Çevik, a lecturer in infectious diseases and medical virology at the University of St Andrews, agreed, saying: “We have known for some time that only about 10% of transmission events are linked to outdoor activities.”

We realise the threat of the pandemic is by no means over, but it just goes to show how government infringed on our freedom by making decisions that weren’t based on facts.

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