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South Africans have largely complied with the lockdown rules and regulations, and given up many freedoms to prevent the spread of the virus.

We were all in this together at the start, despite arbitrary rules about what could and couldn’t be considered an essential item alongside sometimes confusing directives from Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC).

Then, as we entered new alert levels, with government going back on original statements about what would and wouldn’t be allowed as the restrictions were eased, patience started to wear thin.

Two of the most controversial and hotly contested decisions made by the NCCC involved the continued ban on the sale of tobacco products after alert level 5, then again after alert level 4, and the ban on the sale of alcohol, which was lifted and then reinstated.

The hospitality, restaurant, and alcohol industry has tried everything to come up with a workable plan to reinstate booze sales by protesting, writing open letters, and presenting government with proposals that would regulate the market while still allowing sales.

So far they have been unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Dlamini-Zuma’s rationale that the ban is in the best interests of public health, usually accompanied by a lack of presentable scientific evidence, is being chipped at by experts, with one even referring to the prohibition as “incredibly mysterious”.

Not the words you want to hear associated with government policies.

More recently, medical experts have said that while the alcohol ban has been successful in relieving the stress on the country’s hospitals, it needs to be reviewed.

Dr Glenda Gray, SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC) president, member of the COVID-19 ministerial advisory committee, and no stranger to headlines, recently told Business Day TV that government needs to be more flexible on both the ban and the nightly curfew.

Here’s BusinessTech quoting part of that interview:

“My recommendation to government is to be nimble, is to look at the advice and look at the impact. We have achieved impact by having a curfew and prohibition on alcohol. We have achieved the lives and now we need to look at livelihoods.

“We always looked at this as an interim or a temporary ban, and the government must respond to the data,” Gray said.

Professor Charles Parry, also of SAMRC, backed her up, stating that the focus should be on the regulations in place to monitor alcohol consumption rather than going back and forth, allowing sales, providing no guidance on how they should be conducted, and then shutting them down when things go pear-shaped.

Parry went so far as to present government with a series of alternatives to its current strategy, including limiting the availability of alcohol, reducing the drunk driving limit, and raising the legal drinking age.

Here’s the interview with Dr Gray and Prof Parry:

Aside from the question of liquor sales, the government is pretty busy at the moment trying to get a handle on the widespread corruption that has evolved with the times and is now affecting the fight against the virus.

In the meantime, while industries suffer and jobs are lost, others are cashing in as the black market trade of both booze and tobacco booms.

It looks like even the cops are enjoying a bit of black market tipple here and there.

[source:businesstech]