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It appeared as though we were coming to the end of our national state of disaster this week.

Alas, because earlier this week our government chose to extend that for a further month.

I’ve lost count but I believe today might be day 721 of living under some form of lockdown. By the time we reach April 15, the current extension date, we will have ticked over two years.

Multiple experts have spoken out against further extensions, calling them obsolete and harmful.

There are indications that we are slowly drawing to the end of the state of disaster (we’ve been here before), including Health minister Dr Joe Phaahla publishing an amendment to South Africa’s Regulations Relating to the Surveillance and The Control of Notifiable Medical Conditions.

Basically, reports MyBroadband, this paves the way “for ending the national state of disaster while keeping certain pandemic management protocols in place”.

Fine – we can’t just jump straight back to normal but let’s start little by little.

Those proposed amendments published yesterday include the following:

• Mandatory medical examinations, isolation, and treatments for people with notifiable medical conditions, with an option to self-isolate for those with Internet access
• Mandatory face masks for indoor gatherings and public transport
• 1-metre physical distancing
• Employers to encourage work-from-home where necessary and restrict face-to-face meetings
• Travellers entering and leaving South Africa must have a vaccine certificate, or a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours
• Hand sanitisers must be placed at all entrances of public places to promote hand hygiene
• Restrictions on attendance at other gatherings — 50% of venue capacity, if attendees have vaccine certificates. Without proof of vaccination, attendance is limited to 1,000 indoors and 2,000 outdoors.

Let’s pick those apart.

I’m most enthused by employers encouraging work-from-home where necessary and restricting face-to-face meetings. Meetings can be emails, emails can be Slack messages, driving to and from the office is a giant waste of time and money.

Hand sanitisers everywhere we go has experts divided, but spritzing a little hand sanny (we talk like this now after two years) isn’t the end of the world.

There would also be restrictions on funeral attendance, with attendance limited to 100, as well as the banning of night vigils and after-funeral gatherings.

But in the same vein, indoor gatherings can crack 1 000 people? What’s the difference between that and a funeral?

Hopefully, that 50% venue capacity rule applies to sporting events. It’s absurd watching rugby games in South Africa with a 50 000 capacity and 2 000 fans dotted around.

If the proposed regulations are approved, the Department of Health will implement them without being tabled in parliament.

Public comment period is allowed until April 15, with announcements on how to do that still to be published.

With any positives out of the way, let’s take a wander down a darker road with The Daily Maverick.

Marianne Merten argues that “South Africa’s constitutional democracy now is at a dangerous tipping point”:

Curfews are provided for in Regulation 16M alongside dealing with the sale, distribution and consumption of alcohol and putting South Africa or parts of the country under lockdown.

This is an unprecedented shift of the Disaster Management Act’s powers on curfews and possible limitation of alcohol meant to apply during a specific period of calamity, into ordinary and day-to-day law as regulations under the National Health Act…

Bottom line? The proposed National Health Act regulations effectively cement into day-to-day ordinary law those extra-ordinary Covid-19 State of Disaster measures.

And while this may be dressed up in pretty words of continuing to save lives and livelihoods, such consolidation of extra-ordinary control measures in the executive is a red flag in South Africa’s constitutional democracy.

It’s worth reading that article in full for greater detail but suffice to say our government doesn’t seem too keen to give up certain powers it’s come to enjoy over the past two years.

Sorry, with the stroke of a pen Woolies can’t sell roast chicken any longer. Poof – just like that.

Anything that affords somebody with the name Zuma power (here’s looking at you, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma) has me worried.

[sources:mybb&dailymav]