Better preparation key to slowing down third wave

ON SUNDAY, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the Cabinet had decided to put the country under adjusted alert level 4 due the to increased Covid-19 infection rate and deaths as a result of the highly infectious Delta variant.

The variant, first detected in India in March, is believed to be twice as contagious and to have spread to 85 countries across the world.

Ramaphosa said Delta had been detected in the Free State, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng, the epicentre of the third wave accounting for 66% of cases.

As of yesterday, South Africa had recorded more than 17 000 new cases, with more than 130 deaths.

“The evidence we have is that the Delta variant is rapidly displacing the Beta variant which has been dominant in our country until now. We are concerned about the rapid spread of this variant firstly because it is more transmissible than previously circulating viruses,” Ramaphosa said.

The government’s concern is notable. However, it does not take into account its own failures to prepare for the expected third wave.

Given the global trends of the pandemic, it was never a question of if, but when the third wave would hit our shores. In other words, we knew it was on its way. We just had no idea when.

While Delta’s outbreak was beyond the government’s control, mitigating factors were. For instance, we allowed flights from India into the country even though the deadly nature of the Delta variant was clear for all to see. When other countries immediately closed their ports of entry to travellers from India, we did not.

Our vaccination campaign has been painstakingly slow, expired jabs were ordered, and the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority failed to approve other vaccines, especially Russian and Chinese vaccines.

Had we acted earlier, and not allowed ourselves to be caught up in apparent vaccine politics, we could have saved ourselves from hard lockdown measures that will only exacerbate our economic woes.

Our focus should have been on ramping up the vaccination programme to achieve a herd community rather than rely on non-pharmaceutical measures such as lockdowns.

They obviously harm the economy at a time of massive joblessness and poverty. Our back and forth lockdown levels are unhelpful.