President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Wednesday night, following increasing criticism of government’s decision to impose a national lockdown, which is now in its seventh week.
Many slammed the president's speech for lacking anything concrete, but we've picked 6 things which we thought were important.
1. The lockdown is working
According to Ramaphosa: "The best current estimate is that, without the lockdown and the other measures we have taken, at least 80 000 South Africans could have been infected by now. And the death toll could have been at least 8 times higher than it is.
Ramaphosa said the Covid-19 pandemic has killed 219 people in South Africa so far, while the confirmed infection rate is around 181 people per 1 million of the population while countries such as the US, UK, Spain, Italy and Singapore have between 2 400 and 4 600 coronavirus cases per 1 million.
At the similar stage of the progression of Covid-19, the US and UK had recorded more than 22 000 and 19 000 deaths, respectively.
"We should never forget that the purpose of the lockdown was to delay the spread of the virus and prevent a huge surge of infections,” Ramaphosa pointed out.
"So far, we have been successful in the manner we as South Africans have responded and dealt with this virus."
2. We are in economic distress
About 3 million South Africans have already applied for the R350 Covid-19 social relief of distress grant opened this week which opened this week.
Ramaphosa also said the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s Covid-19 relief scheme has paid out more than R11 billion to 2 million employees working for more than 160 000 companies in distress.
Earlier this month, Ramaphosa’s administration paid out an additional R5bn to social grant recipients to assist poor households at a time when other sources of income have been disrupted.
3. Infections will rise, but we are as ready as we'll ever be
"We have been warned that infections will inevitably rise as the lockdown measures are eased, as has happened in many countries.
Ramaphosa said: "By delaying the spread of the disease, we have been able to strengthen the capacity of our health system and to put in place wide-ranging public health programmes to better manage the inevitable increase in infections.
"We now have nearly 25 000 additional beds available for quarantine. We have been able to source and produce substantial quantities of personal protective equipment for health workers, vital medical equipment and other supplies.
"Using the valuable time which the lockdown gave us, we have managed to significantly expand our screening and testing programme. In all, our field workers have now screened over 9 million people, and we have conducted nearly 370 000 coronavirus tests, he said.
4. SA women are not safe in their homes
"There have been very disturbing reports of increased levels of gender-based violence since the lockdown started," Ramaphosa said.
The scourge of gender-based violence continues to stalk our country as the men of our country declared war on the women. We have developed an emergency pathway for survivors to ensure that the victims of gender-based violence are assisted.
Ramaphosa said that one of the interventions they had made was to ensure lockdown regulations be structured in a manner that a woman can leave her home to report abuse without the fear of a fine, intimidation or further violence.
5. If you haven't done so yet, please change your behaviour
The fight against Covid-19 needs to become part of our daily lives, Ramaphosa said. "Our success in overcoming the coronavirus will ultimately be determined by the changes we make in our behaviour.
"I have been encouraged that so many people are wearing face masks in public since the start of Alert Level 4. We will need to re-organise workplaces, schools, universities, colleges and other public places to limit transmission.
"We will need to adapt to new ways of worshipping, socialising, exercising and meeting that minimise opportunities for the virus to spread.
"It is our actions now – individually and together – that will determine whether the great sacrifices that people have made over these last two months will ultimately save the lives of thousands of South Africans and spare our country from the huge devastation that this pandemic can cause.
6. Government is struggling but determined
As we have confronted this unprecedented challenge, there may have been times when we have fallen short of your expectations. Some of the actions we have taken have been unclear, some have been contradictory and some have been poorly explained, the president said.
Implementation has sometimes been slow and enforcement has sometimes been inconsistent and too harsh.
Ramaphosa said government was determined and committed:
- to ensure that all government decisions are taken in good faith, that they are reasonable and based on empirical evidence, and that they do not cause more harm than good;
- to be transparent, to take the nation into confidence and to do so regularly;
- to continue to be forthright on the state of the pandemic. You want to know when things are bad, and be told when they could get worse;
- to continue to engage and consult with you;
- to ensure that we continue to mobilise every resource at our disposal to support the most vulnerable, and to give the greatest support to those most in need; and,
- to make sure that the funds that are dedicated to our coronavirus response are not wasted and are not stolen.