We can say with certainty that all Covid-19 prognostications show that South Africa is now deep in the economic. We urgently need a plan – and an offramp – from the interlinked health and economic crises, a route that does not simply dump the country near where it was before coronavirus rummaged the world, back to a low-growth, high-unemployment, high-crime dystopia, one in which social cohesion was faltering and the country was fast losing its global status.
And it’s the effect of this contraction on social tension which is most concerning. This can only increase tension within the ranks of the ruling tripartite Alliance, which has maintained unity by feeding off an unrelenting diet of public service salary increases, unmatched by productivity and competitiveness gains. Hence the crumbling commanding heights of State-Owned Enterprises.
60% of Americans now have an unfavourable view of China, the highest number since Pew began polling on the question in 2005. Containment may have just, with Covid-19, be a more popular US policy option. Post-Covid-19, the statist tendency is obviously visible, at least in the shift in authority to the security forces.among the policy set in government, gives them a sense of institutional purpose and the space to flex their camouflage pecs. Allowing this has been a shockingly bad move, the long-term consequences of which, like that of Covid-19, are grave and uncertain.
The government could allow restaurants to continue to operate as food suppliers making contactless deliveries, giving them some income to tide them over, thereby saving thousands of jobs.