Strain is showing on people, govt

Much of the country appears to be going “stir crazy” as we move into the eighth week of the coronavirus lockdown. Stir crazy, to give its dictionary definition, means “psychologically disturbed, especially as a result of being confined or imprisoned”. Even though South Africans have been given back some freedoms under Level 4 of the lockdown and have the tantalising glimpse of more after President Cyril Ramaphosa promised a move to Level 3 by the end of the month, the strains are beginning to show.

Now, it appears, they are surfacing right within the heart of the government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC), upon whose advice the politicians in the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) are making their Covid-19 campaign decisions.

This week, Professor Glenda Gray, head of the SA Medical Research Council, who is part of the MAC team, said she believed the lockdown should be lifted, because it had no basis in science. She was immediately contradicted by Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, who implied there was no factual basis for Gray’s assertions.

A number of other experts have said that the lockdown can no longer be justified. Even in the words of Mkhize himself, the lockdown has achieved its objectives in buying the government time to prepare the health facilities for the inevitable surge in infections which will come.

Gray and other experts are also saying there is evidence of widespread negative medical impacts because of the lockdown – including avoidable current and future deaths from conditions like heart disease and cancer, because hospitals have been postponing this type of screening while preparing for Covid-19 patients.

It is also apparent that the nationwide lockdown has hit the economy hard and the poor have been worst affected. Hospitals are now seeing admissions of young children suffering from malnutrition … for the first time in decades.

And building now, around the world, are voices questioning whether lockdowns were necessary in the first place and were not an over-reaction.

One thing which is emerging from this pandemic is that the science is far from settled and that the lockdown strategy is worth critically examining.

There has recently been a marked change in the attitude of the ANC’s leaders, who, apart from being much less arrogant than they were, also look less sure of themselves – if only going by the body language in public of people like Ramaphosa and Mkhize.

Business and civil society (including influential trade unions) are adding their voices to the clamour to open the economy.

However, some of that lobbying may have been counter-productive – particularly the aggressive posturing by the DA and its grandstanding leader, John Steenhuisen. There are those in the government who would be willing to hold on to the lockdown if for no other reason than being seen to bow to DA pressure and to follow the opposition party’s suggestions.

But, the ANC will be well aware that the longer the economy remains locked down, the more support they will lose. Hungry people are angry people. And angry people take to the streets to express themselves or do so at the ballot box later.

The ANC is beset from all sides and, sooner rather than later, it must back down.