[imagesource: Thapelo Morebudi / Sunday Times]

Let’s clear something up quickly before we carry on.

When this story first broke yesterday, and images of diggers hard at work were shared, it was reported that Gauteng was preparing 1,5 million graves to prepare for a nightmare COVID-19 scenario.

It’s true that the province has now become the epicentre of the country’s pandemic, but it is not true that the province is preparing that many graves for COVID-19 related deaths alone.

Instead, as was clarified in statements earlier today, that number refers to the collective capacity municipalities can take.

That number includes the work on a burial site with capacity for 24 000 graves at the Honingnestkrans Cemetery, north of Pretoria.

At Honingnestkrans, provincial health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku and other officials visited an area reserved for COVID-19 burials, and spoke with the assembled media.

This from the Sowetan:

City of Tshwane COO James Murphy said the site was being prepared in case there was a need for mass burials.

“In total we have more than 200,000 spaces, including normal burial spaces, but our major concern is to prepare for mass burial. Fortunately, as the MEC indicated, the numbers in Tshwane are still very low. We are going to get to a time where we will not be able to do single burials, we are going to have to do mass burials and that would have to be directed by government itself,” he said.

Murphy said he was convinced that the 30ha available would be sufficient and hoped there would not be a need to bury so many people. “We hope we will never get to that but we would rather be on the side of readiness,” he added.

As many have already pointed out, the world death toll currently stands at around 552 000, so the idea that we would suffer three times that on our own was met with derision.

Others stated that it looked like the provincial government had dished out a massive tender without needing to, which wouldn’t be the first time, and wouldn’t be the last.

Here’s some footage from the site in question:

I’ve seen some strange political photo ops in my time (a toilet opening, anyone?), but the images of health officials standing around what could become a mass burial site are right up there.

Do they not realise that this points to a massive failure on the part of both local and national government?

Here’s Masuku staring into a grave:

It’s pretty grim stuff.

Via Hydra Africa, here are the latest COVID-19 stats broken down by province:

Gauteng has roughly the same number of active cases as the rest of the country combined.

South Africa recorded 8 800 new cases yesterday, which was the fourth-highest of any country in the world, and our additional 100 deaths ranked 11th.

The storm is here.

[source:sowetan]