In this, our new normal, may we be spared erratic ministerial whims

Raise your glasses filled with your favourite tipple (bought before 5pm on Thursday) and let’s drink to SA’s arrival at the long-promised level 1 of our “risk-adjusted strategy”. And not a moment too soon, some might say, while others will urge baby steps on our path to the “new normal” of living with Covid-19. It’s been a whirlwind 200 days, marked yesterday, since the first case of the novel coronavirus was identified in SA. It’s 200 days that have changed us — as individuals and citizens — forever. The limits of human hubris have been exposed, our interconnectedness emphasised, our frailty as a species underlined.

The “new normal” will be dictated by the unpredictable nature of the disease, and by how much countries’ responses to it are having to adapt as new information becomes available and the virus itself finds new and unlikely footholds in places where it was thought to have been vanquished.

As we survey the devastation wrought on our economy by arguably the world’s strictest lockdown, we may be sure this war is far from over. But with a recovery rate approaching 90%, and infections dropping, few were surprised when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced our move to level 1, effective at midnight tonight. We may permit ourselves the brief indulgence of dancing en masse as a nation to Jerusalema (a firm presidential favourite, we learnt). The scary truth, however, is that while we may have registered some big wins against Covid-19, our economy is in tatters, and South Africans for generations to come will be paying the bill.

An important part of the move to level 1 is the reopening of our international borders to foreign travellers, which on the face of it presents an opportunity to kick-start our tourism industry, on which the economy relies so heavily.

This is not going to be a panacea for all our economic ills, and it’s not something that can be switched on and off at ministerial whim. Given the track record of some of our ministers in devising regulations during the lockdown, a shiver may have gone down many spines when co-operative governance minister Nkosazana

Dlamini-Zuma told a briefing that the government intends to draw up a list of countries whose citizens will be banned from coming here if their national infection rates are still too high. Should we expect a list of banned countries to show the signs of capriciousness and ministerial whimsy we have seen in some other lockdown regulations? The fact that the government has not yet produced a list of blacklisted countries has only added to the unease, kicking the can down the road and leaving tour operators turning sleeplessly in their beds.

Blacklists are a perilous road to go down. According to at least one leading expert on the pandemic, SA’s Covid-19 trajectory is entrenched in communities, and tourists are going to make no difference to how the virus is going to progress here. If that “science” is going to be ignored in favour of other “science”, we may find ourselves enmeshed in an unwinnable battle to divine what the infection rates are in countries whose citizens may wish to visit.

Could anyone really say with a straight face what the infection and death rates are in Brazil, for example, a country led by a man who mocks people who wear masks? Will our leaders be able to resist the temptation to reward friendly countries, while trying to punish countries we’re not that keen on, like the US? Let us hope not.

That said, there are still countries whose rules make it difficult for their citizens to visit SA, so the danger of a tit-for-tat exercise in barring visitors is always present. And while we pick and choose, it’s worth noting that many of our tourism rivals in Africa — Kenya for example — will let citizens of most countries in. If visitors are subject to the 72-hour infection rule and screened on arrival, why do we need lists anyway? They dare not become another ministerial plaything at a time when we need every visitor we can get.

Tourists will make no difference to how the virus is going to progress here