EC’s coastal resorts hunker down under storms of 2020
Covid-19 dissolves tourism revenue and water taps run dry
Covid-19 is stalking the Eastern Cape again — and it is armed to the teeth.
Nelson Mandela Bay Metro is receiving the most attention at the moment, and there is good reason for this. Coronavirus cases in the metro have spiked so sharply that the city is effectively moving back to lockdown level 3 restrictions.
What my colleagues and I noticed was that while Sarah Baartman district municipality is usually mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela Bay Metro when it comes to the Covid surge, the former does not receive nearly the same amount of attention.
That is why this week I set off to discover what was really happening on the ground. Numbers are all very well and good, but they do not always paint the picture.
Things are bad in holiday towns like Port Alfred. Really bad.
The second person I met on Tuesday told me he had just buried two family members, his grandfather and an aunt.
Journalists covering the pandemic know all too well the struggles of health workers. This year has been particularly cruel to them, and many have lost their lives while trying to save those in their care.
The toll 2020 has taken on them is heartbreaking.
“What is being reported about this area by President Cyril Ramaphosa is true. It is bad, really bad. Certainly patients get turned away. I personally know of at least four people who died from this virus,” one worker told me.
What can you do as a reporter? The truth is, not a lot. All you can do is listen to their stories and hope what you write will help get them the government support they need.
There are many beautiful little holiday towns in Ndlambe municipality. The festive season memories created in places like Port Alfred, Kenton-on-Sea and Bushman’s River Mouth are incalculable.
The effect the coronavirus is having on businesses that rely on the holiday trade brings layers of devastation, travelling outward in concentric rings like a stone in a pond. Yes, there is nothing more important than saving lives, but we simply cannot afford to forget about livelihoods.
Sometimes you feel stupid asking business owners what they’re going through. With Covid-19, the answers should be obvious by now. But, amazingly, there are still many people who believe the impact of the virus is being exaggerated. This is why the voices of those who have lost loved ones and their livelihoods are so important. This is a message that needs to reach every man, woman and child. I was gobsmacked by how many people in the district were still roaming around without masks.
At one business I visited, I was the only person wearing a mask. Are they even aware that Sarah Baartman is a virus hotspot, I asked myself. You would have to be living under a rock not to know that. Or is it that people are now more inclined to believe a hoax voice note circulating on WhatsApp than information corroborated by science?
I had to exercise extreme caution conducting my interviews during lockdown. It sounds callous, but when out in the field among strangers you have to treat everyone as a potential carrier.
As if Sarah Baartman’s Covid worries aren’t enough, the region is also enduring harrowing water woes. Some businesses have invested in water tanks, hoping this will carry them through. The tragedy is it may not even be up to them. The virus may spread, or the fear it creates may turn a holiday resort into a ghost town, through no fault of theirs.
The Dispatch will be monitoring the situation closely, as well as hoping to help turn it around.