It’s been said before; SAs version of capitalism has always been overly comfortable with these kinds of life & death trade-offs. An attitude that can only be described as political nihilism. It’s accepted that the poor will carry both the public health & econ risks of this crisis

The idea of workers’ lives being expendable is baked into the very fabric of our economic system. With this framing it’s easy to have a Marikana, easy to have a few 100 mining deaths per year, it’s easy to have listeriosis outbreaks, easy to have 1000s of workers COVID infected

We’ve had a very boisterous and public debate over lockdown restrictions that has not adequately centered the lives of those being asked to make the first-in-line sacrifice: workers. Instead public discourse focused on smoking, jogging, e-commerce, Glenda Gray’s sensibilities

Anyway this is what the op-Ed writers wanted. The ‘eradication’ of the lockdown. When things get worse, many will disown their initial views and accuse govt of abandoning science in scrapping lockdown restrictions