As we know, from State President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech, we now get 12,000 new cases everyday or about 500 new infections every hour.  Covid-19 is really spreading very fast through South Africa and all of those who had theories, some of which sounded great, about not temperatures not allowing Covid-19 to spread or the BCG vaccinations we were all given, have obviously seen those theories shot to pieces.  South Africa is not special in terms of avoiding Covid-19 and all the theories that were circulated have all turned out to be absolute nonsense. 

Part of the problem in South Africa is that a lot of people have been ignoring the social distancing rules and congregating in big groups even when they are collecting food supplies.  People continued to attend funerals and as the State President mentioned some funerals have more than 1,000 people in attendance. As long as this continues and as long as people continue to ignore basics such as washing their hands and wearing masks, the virus will continue to spread.

Sadly South Africa, according to the State President, has a shortage of more than 12,000 health workers, mostly nurses but also doctors and physiotherapists.  Some of them of course have left South Africa to go overseas where they get better opportunities and again, they don’t have to deal with CCMA regulations and some of the nonsense that one has to deal with in South Africa.  At least now there is some sense and instead of going to a higher alert level the President said, “… that taking the step now would not necessarily achieve a significant reduction in the rate of transmission and would come at an extraordinary economic cost, putting more livelihoods at risk and potentially causing long-lasting social harm.”  Is that not exactly what I said when we got the most ridiculous lockdown in the world?  Did it achieve anything?  Less than 1,000 cases became how many cases?  People could not get food and started standing in long lines, close to each other, singing and dancing and spreading the disease further.  We achieved absolutely nothing with that lockdown and it is a good thing that we are not doing things that way, but a curfew is important. 

In particular, people need to understand that the days of going to nightclubs and bars are absolutely over until there is a vaccine and those types of businesses should not and cannot be allowed to reopen.  Should you be able to drink at home – yes, but there is no basis to go and stand together at a bar and meet new people.  Let’s be honest, a lot of the young people we are hearing about catching the disease are not just getting it from breathing too closely to somebody else – they are actually kissing somebody else because it is very hard to lock up young people for a long time, and they do want to get out, meet each other and have a good time and that is precisely what is spreading the disease now so quickly between young people.

On the other hand, it is true that South Africa has a terrible problem with alcohol and that the vast majority of deaths do, as the State President said, happen at night after people have been drinking.