More people on the streets of South Africa’s slums, despite curfew

This Friday was intended to be a day of celebration and celebration. April 17 was the deadline for the “shutdown” announced by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in a televised address just over three weeks earlier. But instead, the president announced the days before Easter that it would be a two-week extension.

Read more: UN agencies warn of increasing poverty in crisis

Then the city streets Alexandra in Johannesburg does not remain empty, as one might imagine, but full of people. The effect of the national curfew is that it is narrower in the alleys than usual, since adults can no longer go to work and children have to stay home from school and instead kick the ball on the track. The smallest, on the other hand, is the local market.

“We have our permission from the authorities so that we can continue our sales and keep the distance between the stalls,” says Alice, an immigrant from neighboring Mozambique, who sells vegetables with her friend Tina from the same country.

“But business is slow because people don’t have money,” says Tina.

How do you handle yourself?

– We are preparing, says Tina, but it is difficult. We are not entitled to food aid packages because we are not South African citizens and request identification in the distribution.

But returning to their country of origin is not an alternative for the two women: the border with Mozambique is closed.

South Africa was, along with Egypt, early in African countries that will be affected by the new corona virus. The country’s government also acted quickly, with a complete shutdown of the company, which should last at least five weeks.

Schools recover, only socially important business employees can move outside. Smaller grocery stores are open, and larger chains have been forced to block all sections that sell in addition to food. Fear of increased violence in close relationships has also banned the sale of alcohol and tobacco (for public health reasons). Police are trying to stop the illegal sale of these drugs through random checks on the few vehicles visible on main roads.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Health has established a series of criteria for the level of contagion that must be applied for society to open up. If the number of new cases per day exceeds 90, the closure will continue, which is the case at this time.

The economic price has already been catastrophically high. The IMF and the South African central bank expect a drop in GDP of around 6 percent. A large number of African countries have asked to postpone quotas on their government debts and the G20 group has agreed on a first rescue package for the world’s poorest countries. But when possible, the situation is worse for millions of people in South Africa and in other parts of the continent.

Swedish State Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell himself spent part of his childhood in Ethiopia and worked against Ebola in what was then Zaire in the 1990s. In recent years it has had an impact in South Africa, the Congo and Ethiopia. Recently, in March, he visited Somalia, where he helps build an infection control authority. The Swedes are well aware of Tegnell’s position and believe that the line chosen in Sweden should go for export.

– They would need the softer Swedish model, so that people can get some kind of income, I think it would be a much more successful strategy. It is difficult to cope in an African environment where you live off the hands of your mouth, he says.

How will the spread Looking to the future in Africa is difficult to count today. There are a number of factors that are unique. Fewer people live in cities, but cities are densely populated. People live tightly but at the same time spend more time outdoors. The weather is generally warmer, but many of the continent’s metropolises, such as Johannesburg, Nairobi, and Addis Ababa, are at high altitudes where temperate conditions prevail. The population is also significantly younger and only a fraction of the population is in the age range considered a risk factor in Europe.

– It is difficult to know what will happen. Covid-19 is an unpredictable disease in its spread pattern and that is a part that we don’t understand. The swine flu pandemic slightly affected Africa. So we don’t know how many years it affects, whether it’s the actual calendar years or the biological age that matters, says Tegnell.

South Africa only points As a Vulnerable Country On Friday, the country had nearly 2,800 confirmed cases, of which 50 had died. More than 100,000 tests have been performed.

– South Africa already seems problematic. There are large sectors of the population on the move, the labor force on the move. If any country in Africa is going to be really seriously hit, it’s South Africa, but they also have a different preparation, says Tegnell.

It is a legacy of the apartheid era that made South Africa vulnerable to infectious diseases. The white apartheid regime wanted to control the black majority population by prohibiting them from permanently settling in the cities. Instead, guest workers lived in barracks around mines and industries, while families remained in the provinces of origin.

This migrant labor system became devastating when the HIV epidemic hit in the 1980s and 1990s. South Africa is also severely affected by resistant tuberculosis, although malaria does not, in principle, occur outside the tropical border with Mozambique .

Diseases can affect The population’s ability to survive covid-19, but it also means that there is a habit in the health system in communicable diseases.

– I have been in South Africa as part of a group that evaluated their readiness and that really has a high level, they are highly motivated and have a great conscience. It is the same in the Congo, it is obvious that they have an established system, there is an awareness in the care of how dangerous it is with the infection. So it’s about volume, they don’t have the capacity to handle large volumes, says Tegnell.

This is the problem here Locks are central. In Europe, it can be argued that closures have bought time for governments and governments to switch care facilities to emergency care, but this capability is not yet available in many African countries. According to the UN agency, UNECA, on average, African countries have a third of places of care for every 1,000 inhabitants than a country like France, and in the case of emergency care, the need is even more serious.

– I am, to say the least, disgusted with the problem, but I think I could get it (without shutdown). I don’t believe in total closure because you simply push the problem in front of you.

Tegnell thinks of a closure economic activity can lead to social unrest that can become “very destructive,” something that has happened in eastern Congo, where there has been a stubborn Ebola outbreak over the past two years.

It has already started to boil in their directions: in the Nigerian megacity of Lagos, riots have broken out in the city’s poorest mainland. In Kenya, at least 12 people died from police violence during the country’s closure, which is the same number that died on covid-19. The “confinement” of South Africa has also reaped the losses. Three people must have been victims of police bullets in the initial stage.

But when the DN three weeks later, on Friday night, follows an action with the police and the army (which helps the police), everything is quiet on the streets of Johannesburg. Occasionally, the bus driver is promised to return home, homeless people who do not sleep are asked to leave the city streets.

There is debate among police about whether an intervention has been successful without arrests having been made, but Inspector Sithole says he now shows restraint in regaining public confidence.

Two of his subordinates He wonders what it is like in Sweden and after DN describes the country’s “open” strategy, one of them says it would never work in South Africa.

“If you just ask people to stay home, they never will, you have to have a strict ban,” says police, who should not be cited by name.

He is not the first to express that opinion. Would it be possible to achieve the same effect voluntarily in countries with less trust between the state and citizens? Yes, think of the state epidemiologist Tegnell.

– It is important to find ways to communicate. Find spokespersons for people to listen to. It is quite interesting to observe the curves during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Many modelers said it will be terrible. But they worked to create dialogue with the population, and then the epidemic turned into West Africa, he says.