Behavioural change remains our best weapon in the fight against Covid-19

Please find attached soundbite from John Steenhuisen MP.

The DA notes President Ramaphosa’s announcement this evening regarding measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

We welcome the fact that the President has resisted the temptation to return the country – or parts thereof – to a higher level of lockdown. It would appear that lessons about the ineffectiveness and destructiveness of lockdowns have finally been learnt, albeit nine months too late.

We would like to reiterate the President’s call for South Africans to play their part in preventing the spread of infections. Significant behavioural changes are still the best weapon to combat not only the spread of infections, but also to prevent other medical trauma from clogging up our hospitals and ICU beds. Citizens need to play a bigger role in this behaviour change effort, but where they don’t we need increased law enforcement to step in and see to it that the laws and regulations are not abused.

This behavioural change needs to also apply to social gatherings over this holiday season. We may remain on Level 1, which allows for substantial indoor gatherings of up to 250 people, but such a large gathering would be extremely irresponsible given everything we know now about the spread of this airborne virus. Numbers and close contact matter more than anything else, so this has to be a holiday season with a difference. People need to keep any social contact to a minimum, on a small scale, and outside where possible.

We urge the President to intervene in the unfolding crisis in Nelson Mandela Bay, and to ensure that the necessary healthcare capacity is made available to the people of the Metro. This must involve increasing capacity at existing hospitals for Covid-specific use as well as the provision and staffing of temporary field hospitals.

Government should also be doing all it can to ensure that South Africans have access to the same protection as the rest of the world. This should have started by securing a spot at the front of the queue for Covid vaccines. Unfortunately our government has bungled this badly by missing the deadline for the first payment in the COVAX vaccine initiative. This means we now fall back in the queue, and South Africans might have to wait even longer before securing a vaccine.

This is unacceptable, and government owes the country a detailed and honest explanation of exactly what went wrong. It is crucial that this payment is made this week still, and that we book our spot in the queue.

What government should also be doing is to target far more of its communications at the most vulnerable groups in society – the elderly and those with serious co-morbidities such as diabetes and heart disease. These are the people who need to be shielded from the virus more than anyone else, and will have to remain shielded until everyone has had access to the vaccine or we have achieved a level of herd immunity. This is where most of our precautionary concern should lie.

With regards to the rising numbers of infections in the Garden Route area, we have full confidence in the preparation and capacity of the Western Cape Government to identify and contain any further outbreaks or hotspots as we go into this crucial holiday season.

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