President Cyril Ramaphosa was to continue consultations today with Cabinet colleagues, provincial premiers and local government on preparing the country for a shift to a level 3 lockdown sooner than the end of the month.
Presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko said the president had co-chaired a virtual meeting yesterday with the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).
News24 reported Diko as saying: ‘The president is optimistic that the work done by Nedlac and government’s continued consultation with other formations and sectors could deliver an advance to Level 3 before the end of May 2020.’
Yesterday’s meeting ‘was the first in a series of consultations led by the president between government and social partners as well as more specific sectors of civil society on the migration from Level 4 to Level 3 of the lockdown’.
Diko said Nedlac ‘views Level 3 as an opportunity for expanding local production and greater consumption of South African-made goods as part of reversing the economic losses suffered during the national lockdown and as part of the country’s long-term approach to industrialisation and employment’.
Positive cases rose by 785 to 13 524 yesterday, and the death toll grew by nine, to 247.
Six Wits University academics, Imraan Valodia, Alex van den Heever, Lucy Allais, Martin Veller, Shabir Madhi and Willem Daniel Francois Venter, have recommended that South Africa ‘move rapidly’ to stage 2 lockdown, while taking steps to minimise infection in vulnerable, high-risk groups.
Writing on News24, they said: ‘In the context of the initial uncertainty, South Africa’s early lockdown was prudent. It allowed time to prepare the health care system, to ramp up wide-spread testing and to introduce other measures to reduce transmission rates. Extending the lockdown is no longer required. It is also no longer reducing transmission rates and has become unaffordable.’
‘An extended lockdown comes with substantial health costs. These include costs brought about by undermining public health initiatives such as immunising children against threatening diseases and in the impaired provision of health services to those living with comorbidities such as diabetes, tuberculosis (TB), HIV and hypertension. Indeed, there is evidence that currently the gains made over recent years in reducing the rates of, and deaths from TB are being reversed.’
They said it was ‘not possible to contain the spread through lockdowns, because of the economic cost and the fact that it is not possible to keep the reproduction rate at consistently low levels’.
The academics concluded: ‘The ability of the country to avert the possible full impact of the virus will only succeed if all citizens of South Africa cooperate willingly with measures aimed at slowing the rate of transmission. If that does not happen, the full might of this virus will manifest itself sooner rather than later, irrespective of the level of official lockdown.’
Judge Hans Fabricius of the Gauteng High Court yesterday handed down judgment in favour of the urgent application by the family of Collins Khosa, who was beaten to death allegedly by members of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) in Alexandra in March. The judge said the right to dignity, the right to life, the right not to be tortured in any way and the right not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhumane or degrading way were non-derogable, even during states of emergency.
He ordered the minister of defence, secretary for defence, chief of the SANDF and minister of police to command their members to adhere to the absolute prohibition on torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, and to apply only the minimum force that was reasonable to enforce the law.
The court rejected claims that accused members of security forces could only be suspended after they had been found guilty by an investigation, and ordered that police officers and soldiers who were present when Khosa was assaulted be placed on precautionary suspension with full pay, pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings.