The government is likely to extend the national state of disaster beyond the one-month extension announced on Tuesday, because it may not provide enough time for public consultation on alternative legislation for managing the pandemic.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is under growing pressure to lift the state of disaster and allow the economy to fully reopen after two years of dampened activity. SA is under lockdown level 1 restrictions, which while less stringent than levels 2 to 5 nevertheless impose limits on the size of gatherings and curtail activity in the sport and leisure sectors. The sweeping powers the regulations give to ministers have also given rise to concern about the potential erosion of constitutional rights.
Shortly after the president’s state of the nation address in February, the cabinet said the state of disaster would end on March 15, but on Tuesday evening co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced it has been extended for another month.
This has been done, she said, "to take account of the need to continue augmenting the existing legislation and contingency arrangements undertaken by organs of state to address the impact of the state of disaster".
Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster on March 15 2020, less than a fortnight after SA detected its first case of Covid-19, using the sweeping powers of the Disaster Management Act to implement regulations that have been tightened and relaxed as infections rise and fall. The rules have been used to control the movement of people and the size of public gatherings, as well as to require mask wearing in public, impose curfews and periodically restrict the sale of alcohol and tobacco.
The Disaster Management Act has also been used to establish a no-fault compensation fund for Covid-19 vaccine injury claims and to make provision for the R350 monthly Covid-19 social relief of distress grant.
At issue now is how to create a coherent set of rules that will replace all the measures brought into effect in terms of the Disaster Management Act and allow the government to act quickly if there is another sharp surge in severe coronavirus cases, hospital admissions and deaths.
Several independent sources have told Business Day that the government is planning to invite public comment on draft regulations to the various acts required to manage the coronavirus pandemic or another major health threat, and that this process is unlikely to be completed by April 15. The comment period for draft regulations, which must be published in the Government Gazette, is usually 30 days, but can be up to three months.
This process would be in contrast to the implementation of the lockdown rules, which were enacted with regulations of the Disaster Management Act that took immediate effect.
The government has yet to finalise regulations to the Social Assistance Act, required for the social relief of distress grant, or to the National Health Act, which would be used to continue public health measures such as mask wearing in crowded indoor settings. Business Day understands the government is also grappling with how to manage the stand-alone, no-fault compensation fund for Covid-19 vaccination injuries.
SA has experienced four successive waves of infection, the last one driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. The government needs to be able to respond swiftly to a worst-case scenario fifth wave, driven by an even more contagious new variant that escapes the protection conferred by vaccination or prior infection, said University of KwaZulu-Natal epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim, who previously chaired the government’s advisory committee on Covid-19.
"If we get a new variant and vaccines don’t protect against severe disease, then we can expect hospitals to start coming under pressure and we would need quite drastic action relating to the movement of people, public transport and congregate settings. We would need to act fast, and quite decisively," he said.
The three-month period between SA’s previous four waves has been strikingly consistent and suggests the next one is likely in early May, he said.
New variant
Western Cape premier Alan Winde, who has for months been calling for an end to the state of disaster, condemned the extension. "We cannot be in a state of disaster indefinitely. The scientific evidence is clear: we no longer need a disaster act declaration to manage the pandemic, and we need to normalise our response through existing health legislation. We cannot keep on kicking this important issue down the line, month after month."
Update: March 15 2022
This article has been updated with comment.
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