South Africa’s battle against the coronavirus outbreak has been made that much more difficult by the country’s mounting economic crisis, with the rand hitting a new all-time low on Friday, and ratings agency Fitch downgrading long-term foreign currency debt.
The currency breached the R19/$ mark. Fitch downgraded South Africa’s long-term foreign currency debt from BB+ to BB with a negative outlook, attributing the decision to the ‘lack of a clear path towards government debt stabilisation’ and the impact of the Covid-19 shock on public finances and growth, according to Fin24.
News24 reported that deputy minister of health Joe Phaahla said the government would work to ensure a supply of medical equipment and protective gear for healthcare workers on the frontline, but that South Africa was at the mercy of the tumbling rand.
The BBC’s Andrew Harding wrote yesterday that it was ‘clearthat – for all the impressive, skilled leadership available at the highest levels of the South African state, government, and private sector – years of cronyism, corruption and economic stagnation have damaged key institutions’.
However, he noted that, ‘overall, as South Africans mark their first week under one of the strictest lockdowns introduced anywhere in the world – no jogging outside, no sales of alcohol or cigarettes, no dog-walking, no leaving home except for essential trips, and prison or heavy fines for law-breaking – there is an argument to be made that a government so often attacked as corrupt and inefficient, and a private sector so often seen as aloof and greedy, are rising to meet what is widely anticipated to be the greatest challenge this young democracy has ever seen’.
The ‘sudden, extreme crisis’, he concluded, ‘offers the tantalising possibility of radical change, of forging new alliances, of disrupting failing systems and patterns, of exposing bad leadership in the most unforgiving manner, and of bringing the most talented and dynamic people to the fore’ and that ‘(some) of those changes are already under way.’
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced that South Africa’s positive cases had risen to 1 505, and that seven people had died. So far, 50 361 people have been tested.
Retired Constitutional Court judge Justice Kate O’Regan has been appointed as Covid-19 Designate Judge to oversee the tracking and tracing of people using their cell phone numbers, according to Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola.
It was reported that St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban had shut its trauma unit after three patients had died from the coronavirus. Eleven staff at the hospital had tested positive.
In other virus-related news
- International Monetary Fund chief Krisalina Georgieva said that ‘(never) in the history of the IMF have we witnessed the world economy coming to a standstill’. She said the virus crisis was ‘way worse’ than the 2008 financial crash;
- In Britain, two more NHS Nightingale field hospitals have been commissioned for Bristol and Harrogate, to join those already opened in London and planned in Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, according to the BBC; and
- For the second day in a row, there have been more than 900 deaths in Spain, where 10 935 people have died of Covid-19 since the outbreak began. Spain has 117 710 cases, 2 000 fewer than Italy.