Touting conspiracy theories on virus is playing with fire

WHILE some are grumbling about the efficacy of the 21-day lockdown imposed by the South African Government to halt the spread of the Covid-19, opponents of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration are playing a very dangerous game by trying to draw political capital from the crisis.

Last week, Jean-Paul Mira, head of intensive care at Cochin hospital in Paris, drew widespread condemnation for suggesting that a tuberculosis vaccine currently on trial in Europe and Australia should instead be trialled in Africa to see whether it would work to combat Covid-19.

Considering France’s racist colonial legacy, particularly on this continent, the outrage over Mira’s comments was well-founded. But what followed next was even worse.

Somehow the EFF and African Transformation Movement along with other opportunists sought to start a debate about vaccines, with all manner of conspiracy theories abounding.

The DA’s Dean MacPherson thought the lockdown regulations were “authoritarian”.

South Africa has faced many crises before this one. Perhaps someone should tell the critics that this is the first time an ANC government has shown its mettle in exercising leadership.

When Thabo Mbeki and his administration were confronted with HIV/ Aids, and despite the fact that many people were dying, the response from the ANC government was to entertain conspiracy theories and bogus cures from charlatans dressed up as medical professionals.

Yes, the rapacious greed of the world’s big pharmaceutical giants should be questioned and they should be held to account.

But we need only look at the crisis in the US to see how Donald Trump’s confusing messages over the coronavirus pandemic place more people at risk and threatens to cripple that country’s healthcare system.

As has been stated numerous times, South Africa simply does not have the luxury to entertain conspiracy theories when the lives of thousands of people are at stake.

While experts around the world, and in this country, actively seek solutions to fight this virus, the best solution available to us currently is to practise social distancing. More than 100 years ago it helped to curb the spread of the Spanish Flu.