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Did you know South Africa’s Lockdown costs the economy R13 billion per day and SARB estimates that about over 370,000 Jobs are going to be lost because of Covid19 Pandemic. But there is a Possible Way for South Africa to have a Lockdown without Economy and public health hindrance
South Africa faces three interrelated problems. The public health threat from the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic and health effects of the lockdown, and a range of intractable economic problems such as high unemployment, low economic growth and falling per capita income.
Focusing only on the health challenges and not economic issues will result in great economic costs, and will undermine the health imperatives. It’s evident a protracted lockdown applied by SA won’t necessarily have an effect of ridding South Africa of Coronavirus.
The Global Covid19 availed data suggest initial containment of disease through lockdown can be short-lived and likely to result in a rebound of cases in absence of community-wide screening, isolation of identified cases and quarantine of their close contacts for at least 14 days.
As I said previously Lockdown cost S. Africa R13bn a day. SARB Projects SA could shed 370K jobs in 2020 and a GDP contraction of 7% leading to a fiscal deficit of 12% of GDP and a debt-to-GDP ratio in excess of 81% in 2021. SA’s limited public finances will further be constrained
South Africa’s health and economic strategy beyond the lockdown must be made to ensure good healthcare and be economically sustainable. This approach has been advocated by researchers in Germany and the Indian state of Kerala. But of course our Countries are totally different.
SA need a unified health and economic strategy that allows for some economic activity while inhibiting the uncontrolled spread of the Covid19 virus. This requires a number of health and economic measures to be implemented at a coordinated manner. So we await to see more from Govt
To be successful, the scale of testing needs to be at least equivalent to that in South Korea (17,322 tests per day in SA, mean testing 1 in 150 people). At best, it must be equivalent to that in Germany (36,399 tests per day in South Africa). SA does 15K testes according to NHLS
Also it’s not easy for Congested Areas mostly Townships like Alex, Blikkiesdorp, Diepsloot etc to be on Isolation. But Isolation of infected persons and quarantine must last a max 14 days, at home or in quarantine facilities. Annual cost of 17K tests a day is approximately R5bn.
There would perhaps be an additional annual cost of R4 billion for contact tracing and quarantine. These costs compare favourably to the daily economic cost (R13 billion) of the generalised lockdown. This must be consistent with aim of preventing uncontrolled spread of the virus.
