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South Africa, which had one of the strictest and earliest closures in the world, is marking a significant change in its fight against the coronavirus, writes BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding.
It was hardly a “mission accomplished” moment.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa looked appropriately stern and appropriately wary as he appeared on national television this week to warn of the dangers of a second wave of infections and urge the public not to lower their guard against the virus.
And yet the president’s key message was a simple, optimistic, and impressive truth.
“We have managed to overcome the worst phase of this epidemic,” he declared.
As the infection rate falls below a significant threshold of one new case per day per 100,000 people, South Africa is moving, with relief and some pride, into a new phase.
What the president and his scientific advisers describe as “a new normal.”
image copyrightfake imagesWith nearly all economic activity resuming, the nation’s borders slowly opening, and the end of one of the world’s earliest and tightest closures, this feels like a significant moment – an opportunity to take stock, even celebrate. , and to explore the ever-thorny issue of who, or what, should share most of the credit for containing Covid-19.
“I had visions of Italy … that we are not ready, that we are going to be overwhelmed,” recalled Professor Salim Abdool Karim, chairman of the government advisory panel on Covid-19 and the public face of the scientific community, recalling March As what he and the government publicly warned was a looming viral “storm”.
Instead, very few hospitals were overwhelmed, and the official death toll of about 15,000 is significantly lower than even the most optimistic model predicted.
image copyrightfake imagesSpeaking on an internet link from his office in Durban, Professor Karim makes no secret of his relief.
But like many scientists, his inclination is not to sit back and enjoy the good news, but to continue researching and testing hypotheses to better understand both Covid-19 and South Africa’s response to it.
‘Bad epidemic’
There is a lot of data to analyze now.
Much of it is contradictory. Or rather, much of it still needs to be put in the proper context.
image copyrightReutersTake South Africa’s long battle against HIV and tuberculosis for example.
The new evidence suggests that TB patients are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.
But, on the other hand, the systems in place to deal with both pre-existing diseases, “helped us and prepared us better to deal with Covid,” said Professor Karim.
And while South Africa may have good reason to celebrate its successes, there is also much to criticize.
“We have had a pretty bad epidemic,” said Professor Karim.
“At one point we were the fifth worst in the world. I wouldn’t call that something to be proud of.
“I would have been very proud if we could have mitigated the impact to a much greater extent.”
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As we report here in recent months, there have been cases of terrible mismanagement, alarming allegations of corruption, and some serious errors in handling the outbreak.
I will leave the economic impact of the shutdown – and the legitimate debate, enriched by hindsight, on whether the government struck the right balance – for another day.
Nine theories
But what are the reasons for South Africa’s relative success in fighting the virus?
image copyrightfake imagesProfessor Karim has compiled a list of nine factors, or hypotheses, that applies not only to South Africa, but to other countries, especially on this continent, that seem to have been spared the worst.
- His first point is the lack of information, a particular problem in less developed nations.
- His second is under trial due to limited capacity and resources.
- The third, which ranks high on the lists of many experts, is the demographics and younger populations of many African countries.
- Then comes the question of how the virus got to South Africa, via travelers who did not tend to mix with the general population, allowing authorities to stamp out the first wave of infections relatively effectively.
- The fifth is the early closure implemented in South Africa and many other parts of the continent.
- The sixth point, which I mentioned in a recent article, is the pre-existing immunity hypothesis, due to previous exposure to the four common circulating coronaviruses.
- The seventh is the potential impact of warmer temperatures.
- The eighth is the possible role of altitude in the virus.
- And the ninth involves the word “stochastically,” a reference to the unpredictable way this virus appears to spread and the difficulty of predicting when individual spikes of infection are likely to arrive.
Nine theories. But true to form, Professor Karim isn’t completely convinced by any of them, at least not without further evidence.
image copyrightfake images“I doubt that any of these are a major factor explaining all the difference [of why some countries have done better than others],” he said.
“Even in combination, this wouldn’t explain most of the difference we’re seeing. It’s still intriguing to me.”
