Keep your guard up and Covid-19 at bay

Covid-19 fatigue is a reality. It’s been almost a year since President Cyril Ramaphosa put the country into the first of a series of lockdowns … and they are still in force, albeit it at the lowest level of alert.

People are tired – but the rates of infection and the numbers of deaths are coming down. And that is a dangerous, possibly deadly combination … because if we let down our guard now, we risk being overwhelmed by a third wave of infections.

Experts warn that relaxed vigilance over the coming long weekend and then Easter – with its particularly high potential for “superspreader” events such as religious gatherings – could well accelerate the arrival of the third wave.

Carelessness could also make the wave’s peak – in infections and fatalities – worse than it otherwise may have been.

At the same time, there came the discouraging news that, at the current pace of inoculations in South Africa, it will take between 12 and 18 years for government to reach its target of vaccinating 67% of the South African population to achieve Covid-19 herd immunity.

Government has to speed up that process and all of us have to do our part in reducing the risks of transmission by sticking to safety protocols.

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