Nobody has the answer to dealing with Covid-19

There have been many critics of the government’s projections – released this week – about the likely impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on South Africa.

A cause for concern is that there has not been clarity on the assumptions on which those projection models are based. As it is, the models throw up some frightening figures about total deaths and infections.

By November, say the projections, we could be battling with at least one million active cases and the death toll by the end of that month could stand at 40,000 people … and that’s the optimistic estimate.

Critics argue these projections will make South Africa one of the top three worst-hit countries in the world by coronavirus, by death and infection rates.

This jars markedly with the current situation, where our spread of infection and death rates have been much lower than those of other countries at the same time in the development of the disease.

Those questioning the accuracy of the official projections are also beginning to wonder openly whether the “scare stories” emanating from Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize’s experts are not being deliberately hyped-up in order to ward off growing calls for the lockdown to be eased, or even scrapped altogether, as soon as possible.

The sudden, accelerated rate of infections, while it has been expected has, nevertheless, led some people to question whether, in fact, the lockdown did any good at all.

All of those issues are legitimate ones to raise with the government and those who do so should not be dismissed as racist, anti-ANC or heartless capitalists willing to sacrifice poor people on the altar of making money.

However, at the same time, it is clear that the clamour for the ending of lockdown might threaten to undo whatever good work was achieved by the draconian restrictions.

In some parts of the country, lockdown regulations are being ignored by people desperate to get back to work to be able to feed themselves and their families. People are already out and about and the adherence to social distancing rules – including wearing of masks in public – is patchy at best.

This week, though, ominous reports have started emerging from Cape Town’s hospitals, where Covid-19 admissions are said to be doubling every five days and where the main hospitals are already about to reach their capacity. Already, at a comparatively early stage in our local outbreak, doctors and nurses at some Cape Town hospitals are working 12-hours shifts daily and a number have contracted the virus. Worryingly, too, some medical staff have not been coming to work for fear of having to deal with Covid-19 patients.

The sense is that the Western Cape is about to become a medical war zone, much like Northern Italy and Spain, as well as the UK, became when the coronavirus tsunami overwhelmed them.

So, one cannot really fault Mkhize and his team for treading cautiously. This is a very real threat to millions of South Africans, notwithstanding those who try to dismiss Covid-19’s effects as being little worse than a normal flu.

Do we reopen the economy and expose more people to infection and possibly death? Do we stay locked down and see more people suffer and die from the effects of poverty?

Nobody really has any answers.

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