President Ramaphosa puts South Africa into a 21-Day lockdown to fight COVID19

SOUTH AFRICA - In Brief 23 Mar 2020 by Iraj Abedian

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In a move, largely expected, President Ramaphosa exercised his full constitutional authority to put the country under a 21-day nation-wide lockdown to avoid a "human catastrophe". South Africa has an estimated 10 million citizens with severely compromised immune system; either due to Aids and.or TB. So the socio-economic cost of any delayed action would have been massive. Over the past week, the President has been consulting with all socio-political, business, and financial sector stakeholders to ensure full national buy-in for his unprecedented invocation of the presidential powers within the bounds of the National State of Disaster legislation. He is fully alert to the reality that his legacy will be defined largely in term of his proactive action to avoid a human catastrophe, potentially of a genocidal proportion. Given the scale of the potential numbers involved, there is absolutely no way that the entire public and private health facilities could cope with the flood of would-be patients. No cost is large enough to avoid such eventuality. The President also acknowledged the damage that such a lockdown is bound to impose on the economy, causing bankruptcies and job losses. Much like many other governments,. to ameliorate such predictable outcome, the government has introduced a range of measures to support the small businesses and vulnerable groupings within the society. Amongst many other measures, the President announced the establishment of a Solidarity Fund to be governed by reputable private individuals to take care of the poor and the homeless. The two richest families,-the Rupert and the Oppenheimer - also donated one billion rand each, to establish a 2-billi...