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Yesterday, the cooperative governance minister, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, extended the state of disaster until November 15.
It gives the government unlimited power to make arbitrary regulations to stop the spread of Covid-19, even as the virus continues to drastically recede.
But as the government clings to this power, the question is: did the lockdown that was imposed in terms of the state of disaster even work to stop the spread of the virus?
A growing number of analyzes show that while it caused economic misery, the lockdown did not halt the rise in cases of the disease.
Last week, actuary Barry Childs, who led the Actuarial Society of SA (Assa) official modeling group on Covid-19, addressed his colleagues at the 2020 Assa convention about what he had learned over the past months.
For starters, he said that while one might have expected the lockdown to slow down the disease and open up the Western Cape economy to increase infections, “the exact opposite occurred.”
Using Google mobility data, Childs noted that as the lockdown became less strict and movement between people increased, Covid-19 infections decreased.
“As the levels were lowered, just as there was more and more pressure from the broader society to get back to ‘normal’ … the curve narrowed,” he said.
Citing infection data from the Western Cape, Childs asked why cases started to decline in that province, in epidemiology, why did the curve “change”?
“If you put a lot of reliance on blockades and non-pharmaceutical interventions as the reason for turning the curve… we saw the exact opposite. We saw, as the levels of blocking and rigor were lightened, the curve flattened ”.
Even though SA had one of the strictest crashes in the world, it was precisely during levels 4 and 5 that the epidemic grew at the fastest rate, he says.
In a new Conversation article, academics at the University of Johannesburg working at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge also say they found no evidence that the strict lockdown had worked.
They are much more critical than Childs. “As the blockade restrictions were relaxed and SA entered levels 4 and 3, when … the movement restrictions were substantially reduced, there was no increase in the infection rate.”
They conclude: “If lockdown regulations had the desired effect, one would expect the infection rate to increase as restrictions were relaxed. This did not happen. “
The fear of the ‘second wave’ can be overstated
The question is why?
To answer this, Assa’s team used the Western Cape mortality data and the actuarial model they had developed to test two theories.
One hypothesis is that the block itself worked and that “somehow the progression of the disease was being slowed down by the [nonpharmaceutical interventions, including social distancing, masks, and decreased contact] themselves.”
But Childs says this seems unlikely, as cases declined as the economy opened up.
“We will never know exactly, because we did not have a ‘no blocking’ alternative to examine together with [the lockdown]. But the fact that despite the very strict blockages, the disease spread so rapidly means that they were not effective in slowing the spread. “
The other theory as to why the pandemic subsided when it did is that so many people were infected that a level of herd immunity was reached, causing the spread of the virus to slow down.
Childs says there was a widespread spread of the virus which, along with relatively high levels of penetration into the community and a higher proportion of asymptomatic cases, “means there was some level of herd immunity.” It occurred at a lower level than was initially expected in early models, he said.
Childs’ conclusion dovetails with that of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, stated in its fifth special public health surveillance bulletin last month. The institute said the spread slowed in the Cape because enough people had been infected. High levels of community infection “contributed to the observed decrease in the epidemic curve in the Cape Town metro when the blockade was easing,” he says.
This conclusion was based on a study by UCT virologist Marvin Hsiao, who found that in July and August between 38% and 42% of men and women in Cape municipalities had antibodies against Covid-19.
Nonetheless, Childs says that knowing only what he and the government did in March, he would still support the first three-week lockdown, although the five-week extension came as a “surprise” to many modeling groups.
Academics at the University of Johannesburg say: “Although we did not agree with that, putting SA on a strict lockdown was understandable as a precautionary measure in a state of ignorance.”
However, it is important to note that they say: “The silver lining is that, if our analysis is correct, there is currently little reason to fear a severe second wave in South Africa or the wider region. The lockdown was … ineffective, therefore the exposure has probably been widespread and a dramatic resurgence is not likely. “
Childs argues that, for the same reasons, if there is a second wave, deaths will be minimal. This is partly based on the observation that countries with a more extensive spread and a high mortality rate in the first wave, such as Italy and Spain, have had fewer deaths in their second wave.
Assembly costs
And as the government extends the state of disaster, giving it extraordinary power, many are counting the costs of the shutdown.
In a detailed article in the Journal of Democracy, the UCT husband and wife team of Nicoli Nattrass, who is a professor of economics, and Jeremy Seekings, a professor of political studies and sociology, argue that the consequences of such an authoritarian blockade are they will feel. for some time to come.
“In hindsight, the decision to impose a comprehensive and nationwide lockdown so early may have been a mistake, militarizing the Covid-19 response and making it a matter of public order,” they say.
The decision itself, they say, appears to have been driven by a “combination of deference to medical scientists, the technocratic leanings of the president, and the authoritarian leanings of other ANC leaders.”
And they warn: “The consequences of a weakened economy and a more militarized state are likely to cast a long shadow over South Africa in the coming years.”
In his presentation, Childs said there is no way to know how many lives were saved by the shutdown.
“Reflecting on Covid-19, have we done the right thing? Do we overreact? Are we spending too much money to save these lives? We really don’t know, because we don’t know definitively how many lives were saved. “
To prove this, he used a crude estimate and assumed that the 40,000 deaths initially predicted by the actuarial model had actually been saved. Dividing this by the expected loss of R300bn in tax revenue after closing means that these were “the most expensive lives we have saved.” He added: “It’s an actuarial way of looking at things, but I’m in an actuarial audience.
“Morbid as it may sound, it does represent, I think, a failure of integrated decision-making in terms of understanding that nothing is free when making these kinds of decisions,” he said.
It is partly because of the devastating economic consequences that UJ academics warn that even if there is a resurgence “the government should not be tempted to start implementing similar [lockdown] strategies”.
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