Tomorrow, the results of the National Income Dynamics Survey: Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) study will be released. They will show that the social harm caused by the lockdown and the Covid-19 health emergency is far deeper and more damaging than previous estimates. But, paradoxically, Covid-19 presents us with an opportunity to make reparations for South Africa’s racially divided past, to rebuild trust, and to create safe neighbourhoods that erect an invisible barrier of community and solidarity against Covid-19 and the poverty it is unleashing.
Editorial
The Constitutional contract is being broken – we must repair it and demand a fair society
Across the world, capitalist economics is in tatters. As always happens in a mega-crisis on a scale of that brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, governments and central banks are breaking ‘rules’ that in stable times they insist are immutable.
Does anyone remember Life Esidimeni? Of short memories, public service and truth telling
Throughout much of 2017, South Africa was gripped by a health disaster of another type – the Life Esidimeni tragedy. It seems that its lessons are being forgotten already.
Black children’s lives matter
June 16, 2020, is the 44th anniversary of the start of the Soweto Uprising on 16 June 1976. Because of Covid-19, it will probably be the most difficult year young people in South Africa have faced since those brutal and murderous days. Millions are hungry. Millions have had their dreams of schooling interrupted. Young people will be bearing the brunt of job losses, that is if they had a job in the first place. Sadly, today should be considered a day of shame rather than celebration; a day for an urgent and tangible recommitment to equality for young people.
Resetting South Africa: From locking down to scaling up
The social contract we entered into to defeat Covid-19 is not over. It came in several parts. Inasmuch as we accepted that the lockdown would destroy jobs and livelihoods, this contract contained an implicit promissory note that in return, and after the lockdown is lifted, those jobs would be recreated. Resetting and restructuring our economy is integral to the next stage of Covid-19 prevention.
Malnutrition, health services and democracy: The responsibility to speak out
As I went for one of my early-morning runs last week, it was a rubbish collection day. As I panted up and down hills on the comfortable, sequestered roads around Observatory, I noticed many more people than usual foraging in the bins. These were not just waste-pickers. On that day the small army of informal workers who sift rubbish for a living was supplemented by people picking through bins for scraps of food. Household food waste was being packed into plastic bags in much the same way as a more wealthy shopper carries away foodstuffs from still well-stocked supermarkets.
Our message to the World Health Assembly: Ignore Trump, protect the right to health, save lives
This week it is likely that the world will record its five millionth confirmed Covid-19 case – and yet the pandemic has very far from run its course.
Science, Citizens and Democracy – the need to hear all voices
There are rough days ahead in which we are going to see death, disease and panic. But if a pattern of questioning the bonafides of critics is entrenched it will be bad news for national unity in the response to Covid-19. Ultimately, it will leave the government with a choice: a continued lockdown enforced by brute force and fear, or a meaningless lockdown honoured only in the default. Neither is what we want, and the worst thing is that with either option, Covid-19 would be the winner.
Screw the poor? How deep is our commitment to equality?
In recent weeks President Cyril Ramaphosa has made two speeches in which he has made far-reaching promises and stated plainly his commitment to use the crisis to rapidly accelerate efforts to build an equal and fair society out of the ruins of the economy left by Covid-19 and the lockdown.
Overlooking the missing millions – another ‘stain on our national conscience’
In the last few weeks it has often been said that SARS-Cov-2 is a virus that knows no boundaries – be they national, socio-economic, class, race or ethnicity. Although Covid-19 the disease has malicious preferences for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the virus itself doesn’t discriminate in its infectiousness. If you are a human being, you are at risk. It’s a great leveller of artificial denominators based on class, gender and colour.