Is SA ready for the coronavirus?
The coronavirus, or Covid-19, is coming to SA. It will probably kill some of us. As of 00:01am South African time on Friday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the virus, which first appeared in Wuhan, China in late January, had infected 81,397 people in 49 countries. Exactly 2,770 of them had died as a result and 30,384 people had recovered from it.
By midday Friday no cases had been reported in SA and citizens trapped in China are to be flown home and quarantined. That’s good. The virus is in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria reporting a first patient on Thursday.
In the main it causes respiratory illness. The original transmission to humans is reported to have been via a wild animal, a civet or a pangolin, depending on your source, in a Wuhan market.
Covid-19 is transmitted by air and by touch, so there’s no real getting away from it if it finds you. People advise you to wash your hands but that’s so that your fingers are clean when you stick them wherever. Fact is you can have clean hands and still pick it up from someone else’s cough.
And that will be the challenge in SA as we wait for its inevitable arrival. How will we respond as a nation? Will we politicise the virus, as Thabo Mbeki once politicised HIV? Will we blame immigration for not spotting the guy with a fever at OR Tambo International? Or will we pull together and fight our first war against a common enemy?
None of these, probably. Twitter and social media will have their own crises and the rest of us will have to hope that the media and editors and newsdesks have plans in place to cover an outbreak on our soil so that we are informed by facts and not by hysteria. And that the state has made adequate provision to deal with something potentially very dangerous.
When the virus first appeared, the department of health quickly designated a few hospitals around Gauteng where infected people would be taken. By now, those plans are obsolete. Every hospital in the country — from Madwaleni in rural Eastern Cape to Milpark in Johannesburg — should have a senior officer briefed and ready with a plan for when the first patient arrives.
The department of health should begin issuing daily updates on the status of the virus’s progress, just as Eskom now does on the status of the grid even when there is no loadshedding to report.
President Cyril Ramaphosa needs a daily briefing from his health minister.
I don’t mean to be alarmist but I know how easily something like this could spread in our society. I worry most about people in deep rural areas. By Easter, Covid-19 will be with us. Miners will go back to the Transkei for the holidays. Once it’s over that hill over there, past the third umsimbithi tree and in the hut near the ripe mealies, you’re in more trouble than you can imagine.
As Time magazine’s Anand Giriharadas notes, “coronavirus makes clear what has been true all along. Your health is as safe as that of the worstinsured, worst cared-for person in your society”.
As I write this, fears about the virus are wrecking stock markets around the world. It is a rout. In Italy, particularly badly hit, the authorities have cut towns off from the rest of the world.
In SA mines will close the moment a case appears. BMW, Ford and Mercedes-Benz will have to close their factories if Covid-19 appears in their plants. Banks will have to close. Eskom will have to shut down Megawatt Park if it has a case.
People will lose jobs and we will face further recession.
There’s not much any country can do to stop this virus spreading. Even New Zealand reported a case the other day. But if the wise and thoughtful among us are able to find their voice, or be given it by the political leadership so that they can guide us with sound advice, we’ll get through anything.
A piece in the Washington Post this past week sums up what the government should be doing right now. First, figure out who is infected and where they are. All your decisions flow from this knowledge. Second, get health-care workers safe and ready to deal with the virus. Masks, gloves and medicine, now, Mr President. Lastly, tell the public everything you know. All the time.
And oh yes, if you can, dear reader, get a flu shot the moment they’re available. We don’t want you thinking “coronavirus” every time you cough. Pharmacies should stock up quickly.