HANDLE PANDEMIC CAREFULLY
FOR the past two weeks as concern, or rather anxiety, has receded from our collective consciousness, news headlines and graphic footage from India have reminded us that Covid-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future.
Just for context, India is a country of almost 1.4 billion people. On Monday it recorded more than 357 000 cases, in 24 hours, of new Covid-19 infections. On the same day, it recorded 3 449 deaths, with the seven-day average being 3 502. Even for a country of close to a billion-and-a-half people those are still a lot of, some would say unnecessary, deaths.
When such a tragedy unfolds, our human nature seeks to apportion blame, and right now fingers are being pointed at the Indian government, specifically that country’s divisive Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While experts were sounding the alarm Modi decided to go ahead with campaigning for upcoming elections. His right-wing Hindu nationalists’ government also refused to halt mass religious gatherings, perhaps fearful of a backlash from its core constituency.
Modi’s response, at a critical stage of the coronavirus pandemic, almost mimics that of former US president Donald Trump, who ended up paying the political price of indecisiveness and mixed messages. At home, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has come under heavy criticism for its response, especially during the initial stages of the pandemic.
More than a year later, with much of the South African economy opened up, with few exceptions, that cautious approach stands in contrast to that of the Indian government.
Ramaphosa and his ministers like Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Bheki Cele were pilloried in the media for their responses to the pandemic, but ask any random person, and no one (except for tobacco traders) will find fault with South Africa’s lockdown regulations. Years from now, we’ll look back and see that the Covid-19 pandemic tested the resolve of governments, and that of our democracies.
The unintended consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic in India, and other countries where democracy has slipped over the past few years, is that governments will have to be more transparent. Just as Trump paid the price, so voters will ultimately punish politicians who fail to act because they live in ivory towers.