Last-minute scramble

Professor Mosa Moshabela

Head of the University of KwaZuluNatal’s school of nursing and public health, Moshabela believes SA was slow off the mark.

“When we realised the pandemic was coming there was this misplaced hope it may not come to us. The minister of health kept reassuring us we were ready, but we now know we were not ready.

“It was only after we had our first case that people were scrambling. We should have started teaching people about hygiene in February. We knew these things but we did not talk about them.

“There were so many blindspots. We started late, we could have saved a lot of people by introducing prevention early on.

“Nothing else has shown us better that prevention is better than cure than Covid-19 did.”

He praised President Cyril Ramaphosa for his leadership.

“Every time he spoke, he spoke about washing hands, social distancing and mask wearing; what amazing public health promotion is that, including the whole accident with his own mask. That in itself promoted the use of masks.” —