‘Many hills to climb’
As South Africa is gripped by a deadly third wave of the coronavirus, President Cyril Ramaphosa imposes stricter regulations, including a reintroduction of the alcohol ban and the banning of leisure travel in and out of Gauteng.
Sale of alcohol – both offsite and onsite – banned for at least two weeks.
It’s a long road ahead with “many more hills to climb”, President Cyril Ramaphosa said last night in his address to the nation when he moved the country to an adjusted alert level 4 for two weeks from today until 11 July.
Along with the banning of alcohol for the next two weeks, Ramaphosa also closed Gauteng for leisure travel.
“Because of the burden of infections in Gauteng, travel in and out of the province for leisure purposes is prohibited,” Ramaphosa said. “This does not include work, business or commercial travel, transit through airports or for the transport of goods.”
Ultimately, said political analyst Daniel Silke on Twitter, Ramaphosa’s lockdown announcement underlined the “failure to both adequately prepare the health facilities for possible dangerous additional waves over the last year as well as administer an inadequate and inefficient vaccination roll-out”.
“The government is in an awkward predicament – all of its own making,” Silke said.
“It cannot afford the costs of vaccinating its population over weekends and it cannot afford the economic damage and compensation demanded following another extreme lockdown.”
Economic analyst Mike Schussler said the economy is also about people’s lives.
“It’s lives versus lives. It’s not livelihoods, it’s lives,” Schussler said, noting the economy would not tolerate another beating.
“This time around there is no Temporary Employment Relief
Scheme [Ters] money so it would make no sense to implement a month or two months of disaster relief because it would be three or four billion a month and we should rather spend that money on vaccines,” Schussler said.
“People don’t have money to buy food, or buy medicine for another disease. They can’t go to the doctor because their cancer treatments are not happening.”
Schussler said if the economy didn’t recover fully this year, “which is unlikely”, it would take yet another battering “and that also kills”.
“I know of businesses which had quite a bit in reserve. With expropriation without compensation coming up, they were a bit scared. And then Covid hit,” Schussler said.
“They used that money that was put aside. They were just starting to build it up again, but if it hits now it’s going to knock even more.”
National Liquor Traders convenor Lucky Ntimane was unimpressed.
“Once again, a decision has been made that will have dire consequences for our members without us being given an opportunity to propose alternative solutions,” Ntimane said.
“This comes as a hammer blow to our struggling members.”
Ramaphosa said the ministerial advisory committee had advised “the limited restrictions previously imposed were not that effective and that a prohibition will ease the pressure that is placed on hospital services by alcohol-related emergency incidents”.
“In Gauteng, the loss of capacity due to the ongoing closure of the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital is adding strain to other hospitals.
“We are doing everything we can to provide additional bed capacity and speed up the re-opening of Charlotte Maxeke hospital.
“At present, Gauteng has made available 830 additional beds by postponing elective surgery and another 400 beds constructed with alternative building technology that are now being activated,” the president said.
The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) reported 15 036 new Covid-19 cases last night, which brought the
total number of confirmed cases to 1 928 897, representing a 26.9% positivity rate. A further 122 Covid-19-related deaths were reported, bringing total fatalities to 59 900.
Meanwhile, vaccinations around the country continue to stutter along.
Yesterday, Gauteng managed 147 vaccinations at public facilities, while private facilities managed 383 by yesterday 5pm while Mpumalanga managed two at a private hospital.
According to the NICD last night, 501 240 of Gauteng’s more than 15 million people had been vaccinated, of which 126 908 were healthcare workers under the Sisonke trial. A total of 2 684 999 people had been vaccinated in the country, of which 479 771 were under Sisonke.
“We have climbed many hills before, and we will climb this one too,” Ramaphosa said.
We are doing everything we can to provide additional bed capacity and speed up the re-opening of Charlotte Maxeke hospital
President Cyril Ramaphosa