Raise a glass (and spare a thought) as we step into the great unknown

Millions of South Africans are spending their last day of the Covid-19 hard lockdown today excited but apprehensive, at the very least, as the country prepares to take a giant leap into the unknown of level 3. Tomorrow, after 66 days of what has been called “the world’s strictest lockdown”, about 8-million people will return to workplaces that will feel very different to what they left behind before the lockdown began in late March. Schools were set to reopen in grades 7 and 12 amid fierce pockets of resistance from parents and unions who insist SA is not ready. The “new normal” will be nothing if not fraught with controversy and suspicion. And the usual barging and rowing.

At the top of many people’s lists tomorrow will be the long-awaited reopening of liquor outlets. Liquor dealers on Friday started a massive restocking exercise, thanks to a special exemption in the regulations that temporarily lifted the ban on transporting alcohol, in anticipation of what will be the biggest booze rush in South African history.

Marathon press briefings by ministers this week largely dismantled the lockdown, but left South Africans under no illusion that the move to level 3, and the complication added by most of the metros being declared “hot spots” with potentially stricter rules, will be similarly lavishly festooned with red tape. Still plenty of rules to obey.

This was evident from police minister Bheki Cele’s insistence on the right of the police to demand a “receipt” from anyone in possession of cigarettes, and his suggestion that everyone on the road from tomorrow must still have a valid reason for being there — and a letter from an employer if that is the purpose of travel.

Transport will be another flashpoint, with public transport facing an onerous sanitisation and social distancing regime, and a level of discipline that the minibus taxi industry is not renowned for.

Rules aside, the government is at pains to say this is now the “voluntary” stage of the lockdown, reliant on people obeying the rules and observing social distance protocols, and employers ensuring safe workplaces.

Labour minister Thulas Nxesi gave an indication of that challenge, telling a briefing that 44 workplaces were found to be noncompliant out of 72 checked by inspectors this week.

As much as many will welcome the effective end of the lockdown — with the important exception of visits of friends and relatives still being prohibited — it is fitting to reflect on the damage, some of it permanent, inflicted on society. Thousands of lives may have been saved, but at a high cost to others. Perhaps, perversely, the lockdown has compromised the health of many, thousands of TB sufferers among them. Malnutrition and hunger have worsened. Many have lost income, and some their livelihoods.

Politically, there has been a cost too. The lockdown and its enforcement strained the thin veneer of constitutionality that shields SA from the prospect of a style of government that relies all too readily on the big stick rather than on the constitutional instincts of those it would govern. Not to mention a straightforward appeal to their good sense.

Regrettably, it has exposed the weakness and vulnerability of a president who rules at the say-so of a party that appears firmly rooted in the past, and the accompanying outdated notions of an overweening state. The blurred lines of control between President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet, and the National Coronavirus Command Council, have brought us rules that came across as petty, even vindictive, or at least capricious. For a while, as the winter of our discontent blew in, it seemed freedom itself was at risk.

But take heart, SA. Yes, we stand in hope tinged with fear before an expected wave of Covid cases. Aware, but perhaps not enough, that testing capacity is lacking, that hospital beds are few, health resources strained. That many will die. Yet we shall overcome.

Those thus inclined will say a prayer for SA today; others will spend a moment in quiet reflection for those less well off than they. They are many, and their burden is heavy.

Some rules came across as petty, even vindictive, or at least capricious