Cape Town - Premier Alan Winde’s call to President Cyril Ramaphosa to scrap national lockdowns, in favour of a differentiated approach to the pandemic in a bid to reduce pressure on the economy, has received support.
Winde used Tuesday’s President Coordinating Council (PCC) meeting to lobby for a better Covid-19 management system to be implemented to reduce pressures placed on the economy and drive job creation.
“There should not be a one size fits all approach to implementing restrictions. Restrictions should be implemented in line with each provincial healthcare system’s ability to cope.
“We have learnt how to manage waves and have the capacity to do so at a provincial level,” he said.
Responding to Winde’s suggestion, political analyst Ralph Mathekga said: “I think indeed we have learned lots of lessons with our experience with the Covid-19 in the last year, and we can now come up with better plans the allows for a good balance. A multi stakeholder approach is a way to go with this.”
Economist Mike Schussler said: “During the Covid-19 disaster we concentrated only on one aspect. There are other aspects that we must concentrate on and therefore we cannot just depend on lockdowns.
“Evidence suggests that countries that had very severe lockdowns especially in the beginning, such as Peru, had much higher death rates. Sweden on the other hand had a lower death rate and Denmark and the same goes for other Scandinavian countries that long ago scrapped lockdowns.”
Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Jacques Moolman said: “The negative consequences of actions taken by governments everywhere are increasingly resented. It is therefore crucial that a balance is kept between the need to keep hospital cases to a minimum and the freedom to earn a living, and to lead a normal life.”
Public health expert Dr Ernest Darkoh said: “Effective pandemic control requires a combination of national across-the-board approaches as well as province-specific differentiated approaches.
“Differentiated approaches can only work if provinces have the right timely data to inform decision-making and if everyone plays by the rules. Unfortunately the experience to date with Covid-19 has shown us that we cannot count on a model that is predicated on everyone following the rules.”
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za