- Lockdowns may not be the best strategy to contain the spread of a virus during a pandemic, SA experts say.
- Studies during the course of the pandemic show that SA's lockdowns did more harm than good.
- The experts say context is important, especially in highly unequal national contexts like SA.
More than 100 countries globally had implemented lockdowns by the end of March 2020, but lockdowns during a pandemic may no longer be the go-to strategy moving forward, especially in a country like South Africa.
South Africa’s national lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020, and more than two years after analysing the impact of these lockdowns and restrictions, experts believe that their benefits are questionable.
In the latest issue of the South African Journal of Science (SAJS), vaccinology professor at Wits University, Shabir Madhi, and professor of Education at Stellenbosch University, Jonathan Jansen, write that “the experience over the past 27 months clearly demonstrates that lockdowns and many Covid-19 regulations in South Africa largely failed in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections from transpiring”.
The wealth gap
Their article, titled "How to do social distancing in a shack" underscores several important challenges regarding imposing lockdowns and restrictions strongly based on “middle-class sensibilities” that didn’t consider factors such as poverty, food insecurity, and gender-based violence.
“While South Africa has suffered a high burden of Covid-19 compared with many other countries of similar economic standing, partly due to the wealth gap within the country, there have also been other detrimental effects consequent to regulations aimed at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection,” they write.
One of these consequences is unemployment. By 2021, restrictions had affected various sectors of the economy and led to a shockingly low 42% of the working population remaining employed. They say that, according to modelling, employment is likely to recover to peak 2018 levels by 2024–2026, adding:
Previous comments
Madhi, who led the South African arm of the Covid AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccine trials, has previously criticised the country’s lockdowns, saying they did more harm than good.
In December 2020, he stated that SA was a good example of how unsuccessful lockdowns are at containing the spread of Covid. All it achieved in the country, other than upsetting the economy, was to delay the timing of the peak of the virus.
“All that a lockdown does, in a South African context, is delay the inevitable, so that is not the best strategy,” he said.
In June 2021, he also put the spotlight on the government’s lack of planning when it came to vaccination rollout, noting that it didn’t engage early enough with pharmaceutical companies to ensure the acquisition of vaccines. Other factors such as accessibility hindered the rapid scaling-up of vaccination, he said.
Restrictions don't prevent high infection rates
In the recent SAJS article, Madhi and Jansen reference data by DATCOV, which reports hospital-based admissions and deaths. These data demonstrated that the restrictions and non-pharmaceutical interventions (like hand-washing and physical distancing) didn’t prevent large numbers of infections from occurring.
This is further supported by sero-surveys – which look for antibodies in human blood and indicate previous infection – in Gauteng. According to these data, more than 70% of adults in the province had been previously infected with Covid during the first three waves, before the Omicron variant surfaced. In August 2021, Discovery estimated that 80% of people in SA may have had Covid, and said that the country may be one of the world’s hardest-hit nations, Fin24 reports.
And there is further evidence that South Africa wasn't spared the brunt of the pandemic. Excess death data indicate that the Covid mortality rate in SA (523 per 100 000) was more than twice as high as in the UK (197 per 100 000) as of 7 May 2022. Over the last few months, studies have indicated that some of the longer-term effects of lockdowns are likely to be more severe in lower- and middle-income countries.
Madhi and Jansen conclude by reminding us that context matters during pandemics, when governments impose lockdowns: “In impoverished and underdeveloped communities, the parameters of conceptual understanding and the standards of intervention have to account for geographies of inequality in the global world, but also within highly unequal national contexts as in South Africa.”
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