South Africa can’t afford a more stringent lockdown: Economist

Economist Duma Gqubule says South Africa cannot afford a more stringent lockdown, following speculation on social media that the country will be moved to harder lockdown this week.

Many social media users are convinced that alert level five lockdown is just around the corner amid a spike in COVID-19 infections during the festive season.

South Africa recorded 12 601 COVID-19 cases in 24 hours bringing the cumulative number to over 1.1 million cases.

Another 434 people succumbed to COVID-19 related complications.

Gqubule says a stringent lockdown can only delay the surge in new coronavirus infections and has this advice for the government for it to win the fight against the pandemic.

He says, “We have to have a proper public health response. We have to have test results coming out very quickly like in a few hours. And we have a chaotic public sector testing system where results took two days, so we can’t use a lockdown as a substitute for not having proper public health measures. That’s what I’m trying to say, a lockdown is what happens when everything else has failed.”

COVID-19 pandemic dominated headlines across the globe in 2020 and will undoubtedly continue to do so this year:

The COVID-19 pandemic dominated headlines across the globe in 2020 and will undoubtedly continue to do so in 2021.

But how has South Africa handled the pandemic? And how should the country continue to tackle this crisis going forward? To expand a bit more on this topic, various political parties share their respective sentiments and also share their new year political resolutions for 2021.