Focus must shift to how we care for those infected
THE number of Covid-19 infections and deaths keeps rising at a rate that is frightening, yet the government’s communication message on the pandemic hasn’t changed that much.
Perhaps it’s time that the focus shifted from prevention to how to survive this pandemic and how to care for the infected because there is no guarantee that everybody who will get infected will get a hospital bed.
South Africa doesn’t have enough hospital beds and, fortunately, it’s not everybody who tests positive that will need hospital care.
The focus on how to prevent the virus by regularly washing our hands, sanitising, physical distancing and keeping masks on, now seems hackneyed.
The horse has bolted for the prevention message. What matters now is how we deal with the reality of Covid-19 making people sick, especially for those who may not find any hospital beds.
What compounds the situation was the easement of lockdown restrictions which allowed the sale of alcohol between Monday and Thursday.
All hospitals have made Covid-19-related admissions their priority and to deal with alcoholrelated traumas sets this plan back. This is something that the National Coronavirus Command Council needs to look into. If cigarettes are banned because of health-related reasons, a point can be made about how the majority of those who imbibe liquor are unable or choose not to stay at home. This compromises the government’s fight against Covid-19.
Three premiers have tested positive for Covid-19. These are political heads at the forefront of the provincial fight and message against Covid-19, but the virus got to them with all the information and resources at their disposal. We already have more than 3000 deaths and more than 200000 infections.
It’s clear what President Cyril Ramaphosa meant when he said it’s now in our hands. We need a change of attitude and accept that the virus is everywhere and may infect the majority of South Africans. The message and action need to concentrate on that reality.