It’s Day 600 of our Covid Lockdown in South Africa. And what do we have to show for it?
Well, actually very little Covid, to be fair. Some of the lowest numbers since this whole thing began, which sounds great.
But while being very welcome, this favourable scenario is more just because of where we are in the cycle than specifically because of any government action.
Our State of Disaster (the government/legal definition one, rather than just the actual condition of the country) persists, much to the chagrin of those people on the internet. But the fact is, we’re just sitting here waiting for the Fourth Wave, at which point everything would be reinstated anyway. And there are actually very few limits on living our lives right now. A 4 hour curfew each evening is just about it. And all that keeping nightclubs closed is doing is delaying things a little bit as our frankly terrible vaccination numbers fail to make any measurable difference.
We’re in for another heavy lockdown sometime over Christmas and New Year and while everyone – most especially those people – will tell us “I told you so”, they’re the ones that have done the absolute least to prevent it. Every vaccine helps, and while we could be far in making people safer, and protecting our health service, we have to put up with fake news, hyperbole and hysteria from the idiots in the peanut gallery.
It would be hilarious to watch if it wasn’t going to start costing lives in the next few weeks.