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This Corona Virus is going to expose how little we have prioritized community health workers and preventative health work in South Africa. I think its also going to expose, how inadequate some of our investments in sanitation have been ...
... alongside the rate cut (Governor sicela noba yi150bp on Thursday), support for SMEs and distressed firms, we need to think about how we train and rapidly regularize the work of community health workers, as the first line of clinical defense. Our hospitals won't be enough ...
... there's scope for us to rope in unemployed youth and many other (frustrated) community health workers for the emergency effort and beyond.
... the panic buyers have also shown us that rather than downtime, we might have to scale the production of medical and food stuffs. This is important because many of the 'disrupted' inputs are crucial to both the formal and informal sector ...
So how about the following ?
1. 200bp rate cut and payment holiday on insurance premiums and mortgage bonds
2. UIF contribution holiday for all workers, and SME employers
3. Price controls for key clinical supplies (face masks, sanitizers etc.)
1. 200bp rate cut and payment holiday on insurance premiums and mortgage bonds
2. UIF contribution holiday for all workers, and SME employers
3. Price controls for key clinical supplies (face masks, sanitizers etc.)
4. Fiscal transfers - R125-R250 'top up' in social grants for the next 6 months. Not to be paid in cash; but vouchers at selected retailers
5. Matched fund catalyzed by the National Disaster Fund with investors like SASRIA, World Bank COVID fund etc to finance the response
5. Matched fund catalyzed by the National Disaster Fund with investors like SASRIA, World Bank COVID fund etc to finance the response
6. 'Supply compact' with informal sector retailers, especially those whose inputs (like Parmalat for Kotas) are sourced in the formal sector for discounted supplies in exchange for UIF payment holiday on a case by case basis
7. Private sector roll out of testing facilities during the closure of schools. You can use schools as the testing and monitoring centres, with advanced cases transferred to tertiary facilities
8. Through our leadership in the AU and SADC, develop response protocols, and expansion of the production of clinical response supplies across the continent. People in Lubumbashi can't be waiting for masks from Shenzhen or Germiston.
9. Use existing set of 'unused' beds in tourism facilities as extra quarantine or 'self-isolation' space.
10. Lastly, this is a perfect opportunity to get our ducks in a row. Many viruses attack those with compromised immune systems, do we have a tally of how many people in which areas, in case of need? This crisis must allow us to collect, model and act on the data.
