[imagesource: EPA/Nic Bothma]

Writing for the BBC, Andrew Harding has kept a close eye on how South Africa handles the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our initial response to enact a national lockdown was praised as “ruthlessly efficient”, and there is no doubt that we bought our healthcare sector valuable time to prepare.

After covering how the pandemic seemed to have brought a ceasefire on the Cape Flats (which sadly didn’t last very long at all), and whether not our booze ban was proving effective, the mood shifted.

In mid-May, Harding spoke about doubts creeping in six weeks into one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, as many South Africans grew weary of some of the draconian regulations that remained in place.

Well, happy June 1, everybody – booze sales are now allowed (until Thursday, and show some common sense at the store), you may exercise at any time between 6AM and 6PM, there is no curfew, and we have to take our wins where we can get them.

Back to Harding and the BBC’s latest analysis, which states that South Africa has provided eight lessons for the rest of Africa to learn from.

(We should note that some African countries seem to have a real handle on things, so perhaps there are lessons we can learn from them, too.)

Starting with:

Keep the tea rooms clean

Several major hospitals have already been forced to shut after becoming hot spots for the virus.

Doctors are warning that medical staff continue to congregate in tea rooms, removing their masks, passing mobile phones to each other, and undermining all the work they do on the wards.

“The most dangerous place in a clinic is undoubtedly the tea room. We’re trying to get that message out,” said Doctor Tom Boyles, an infectious disease specialist in Johannesburg.

Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, for example, suffered a massive outbreak.

Fast tests – or no tests

It has built up a huge backlog – “tens of thousands” according to several sources – at its laboratories, which is now undermining the validity of the entire testing process…

“Currently the turnaround time for Covid tests is around 14 days in most places, so that basically means it’s a complete waste of time,” said Dr Doctor Tom Boyles, an infectious disease specialist.

As of Friday, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said the backlog around the country was as high as 100 000.

It is not old age, it is obesity

…the evidence from several South African hospitals already suggests that alarmingly high levels of obesity – along with hypertension and diabetes – in younger Covid-19 patients are linked to many fatalities.

It is believed that as many South Africans suffer from hypertension and diabetes as from HIV [and] two-thirds of coronavirus deaths in South Africa so far are among people aged under 65, according to Prof Madhi [a prominent vaccine expert].

“Obesity is a big issue, along with hypertension and diabetes,” he said.

Harding then touches on ‘exposure isn’t always exposure‘, which relates to some in the country’s healthcare system being unnecessarily cautious, and ‘the devil is in the detail‘, which covers our government’s decision to allow religious gatherings of up to 50 people.

The dangers there are clear and obvious.

The sixth lesson is dubbed ‘winning the peace‘, and relates to disagreements between political parties and the potential for long-term change:

South Africa’s official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has been struggling to make itself heard during the lockdown…

When the DA has sought to attract attention to itself, it has shown signs of flip-flopping on policy.

“They should be playing a much longer game, looking to win the peace, not the war,” said [political scientist and commentator Richard] Calland, citing the example of Clement Atlee, who swept to power in the UK, defeating Winston Churchill in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.

I’d say there is a stark difference between what works in wartime UK and what works in modern-day Africa, but moving on.

Bring the public with you relates to the alcohol and tobacco sales ban:

The ban is playing into the hands of powerful criminal syndicates controlling contraband cigarettes, and is costing the government a fortune in lost tax revenues.

But perhaps more importantly, it is undermining the credibility of the lockdown regulations themselves – making compliance, as the country moves to ease some restrictions on movement, less likely.

For any lockdown to succeed, you need the public’s support and trust, and both of those have been greatly eroded in recent weeks.

Finally, number eight – Keeping it simple

For weeks, it seemed, everyone was talking about finding and building ventilators. But the experience of frontline doctors in Cape Town has already shown that simpler, cheaper and less-intrusive devices can play a far more important role.

Countries need to plan according to their limited resources…

Hospitals in Cape Town are also following the international example of “proning” – lying patients face down in order to improve oxygen supply to their lungs.

The principal of looking for simpler solutions applies to staffing too, with many doctors urging the health authorities to focus on bringing final-year medical students, and perhaps retired staff, into an overstretched system, rather than importing expensive foreign doctors from places like Cuba.

Those Cuban doctors really do cost a pretty penny, going by the numbers that emerged when they first touched down in late April.

President Ramaphosa and other members of the National Coronavirus Command Council have repeatedly stated that the worst is still to come.

Given that our confirmed cases and deaths are far higher than in many African countries, we’ll more than likely be providing further lessons for the continent to learn from.

[source:bbc]