Lockdowns to slow the Covid-19 pandemic, and caution in phasing them out, are unavoidable investments in our future. But investments have to be sustainable and efficient. History is littered with companies that made big losses on gargantuan projects — think Eskom and Sasol. So it’s important that we learn from the experiences of other countries that are reopening after subduing the pandemic.
These successful countries did not give in to pressure for a big-bang approach. All retain substantial restrictions, but focused on high-risk areas. Most infections arise in homes, followed by public transport; entertainment and personal services; and retail. Negligence in these spheres can reignite the pandemic, making it far harder to revive economic activities later on. If you want to know what that looks like, google Guayaquil. That’s why no leading economist, either in SA or globally, accepts a simple, static trade-off between pandemic deaths and jobs.
A recent Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (Tips) policy brief summarises learning from seven success stories — New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany and China. In relaxing the lockdown, all of these countries distinguished among producers mostly on the extent to which they interacted with the public. None of them differentiated by product or used the standard industrial classification of industries.
To this day, they retain restrictions on public-facing businesses such as collective entertainment, whether sports, concerts or clubbing and personal services such as barbershops and gyms, as well as large church, family or other gatherings. They opened public transport late in the process, with rigorous safety rules. Nonessential retail initially only permitted deliveries and curb-side pickup. Some allowed restaurants to open relatively early on — Singapore or China without restaurants? Unthinkable! But only with extreme physical distancing measures.
In contrast, productive enterprises with little public contact were allowed to reopen relatively soon, though with far-reaching reorganisation to control infections. This category includes virtually all factories, farms, mines, logistics, construction sites and commercial cleaning. Most professional services can work from home.
In these sectors, infection control was built on long-established occupational and health systems rather than relying on public health authorities. Most of these systems involve worker engagement and oversight, with extensive training and communication. After all, workers are the most affected by lapses and best placed to monitor implementation.
The new workplace regulations in these countries all emphasise physical distancing, regular screening and hygiene. But many go further. Most require that employers get details of all workers and visitors to enable contact tracing, with fines for companies that don’t support quarantine and contact tracing for symptomatic employees. Several countries also enforced staggered shifts and opening times to limit crowding in public transport as well as the workplace.
These measures require that the public health authorities act quickly when cases emerge in the workplace. In contrast, in Cape Town, when cases were identified in retail chains and police stations, it seems they weren’t rigorously quarantined, and contacts weren’t consistently traced in or out of workplaces. Successful countries act stringently and urgently when a hotspot emerges. All of Singapore, and smaller towns in Germany and China, have recently returned to temporary lockdown due to such policies.
Applying this sort of approach in SA would in effect mean that about two-thirds of workers could go back to work. It would require stringent oversight of occupational health and safety measures, including in public transport and enterprises where workers are not organised. Most cultural and sporting activities as well as personal services would stay closed, with strict limitations on restaurants and retail.
By extension, we would still need support systems for people who cannot yet go back to work. And we have to develop just transitions for industries such as tourism and entertainment, where the return to those halcyon pre-Covid days will realistically take even longer.
• Makgetla is a senior researcher with Tips.
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