Road to economic recovery will be long and painful

The national department of health this week announced that SA’s Covid-19 surge is over. While some may breathe a sigh of relief at the news, the fight against the coronavirus pandemic is far from over.The global Covid-19 death toll has now officially passed the one million mark, and a number of European countries including France, the UK, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain have tightened restrictions as they battle a second wave of infections.

In SA, one of the country’s hotspot provinces has also recorded an uptick, which is a cause for concern. Gauteng announced on Tuesday that active cases increased by 6% since the country moved to lockdown level 1 on September 21.

“Non-adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions by some members of the public” is said to be the reason behind the rise in infections. With restrictions relaxed, many appear to be more lax about rules such as maintaining safe distances from others, sanitising regularly and wearing masks.

Now is not the time for the country to rest on its laurels. Each and every one of us must do everything in our power to prevent a resurgence in cases. The past seven months are not something we would ever want to return to.

The pandemic has been devastating on our healthcare system but even more so on our economy. Stats SA painted a grim picture of the economic impact of Covid-19 when it revealed that the GDP fell by just over 16% between the first and second quarters of 2020.

More to the point, Stats SA declared: “The punch in the gut was severe.” The description of the situation could not have been more accurate.

April, May and June, the second quarter, were the darkest months from an economic point of view as nearly all industries were shut down and movement severely restricted while health authorities fought to bring the infection rate under control.

Construction slumped by 76.6%, manufacturing output fell 74.9% and the finance industry was down by 28.9%.

On Tuesday, Stats SA revealed that 2.2 million jobs were lost in Q2. The jobs bloodbath may have been expected but seeing the statistics in black and white is sobering.

Yes, we may appear to be winning the war against Covid-19 for now, but the road to recovery will be a long and painful one.

The pandemic has been devastating on our healthcare system but even more so on our economy