Curfews, booze bans ‘don’t work’ in stopping Covid-19

Anti-lockdown crusaders Pandemics Data and Analytics (Panda) has again challenged the wisdom of reimposing a curfew and alcohol restrictions in Nelson Mandela Bay, saying there has been no tangible link between alcohol consumption and the spread of Covid-19.

“The link between alcohol consumption late at night and the spread of the virus has not been established,” said Shayne Krige, one of the founders of Panda.

He explained that when you have a disease which has what is known as a highly age-graduated mortality, old people are much more likely to die than young people, according to basic epidemiological principles. Restrictions could lead to an increase in fatalities.

“What they do is they shift the burden from the vulnerable to the nonvulnerable people because of the reduced mobility of the nonvulnerable people.

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“And that is a well-known finding in epidemiology … by restricting their movement and their freedom, you are actually causing two sets of harm.

“The first is that you cause a lot of collateral damage and the second, you actually increase the expected mortality from the disease you are trying to defend against,” Krige said.

The group of actuaries, lawyers and economists has opposed the basis of government’s Covid-19 interventions, including that tests were not fit for purpose, a high percentage of the population was not susceptible and that lockdown failed to curb the virus and instead ruined the economy.

Panda’s coordinator Nick Hudson warned against the use of what he referred to as “anecdotal evidence” to drive policy.

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“You cannot pull something out of a hat and say, well, young people meet between the hours of 10pm and midnight, drink lots of alcohol and go home and infect their grandparents who then die. You cannot just say that. You need science to actually say that happens,” he said.

Though far from perfect, SA’s response to the virus has general been praised, including by the World Health Organisation.

In September, Discovery Health showed that government’s swift action in imposing a hard lockdown within weeks of SA’s first coronavirus case would have averted 16 000 deaths by the end of the year.

Discovery’s data also showed that, as a result of these decisions, SA had achieved lower infection fatality rates than other countries and that these clinical and epidemiological benefits were demonstrable.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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