It is hard to fight Covid-19 when your debates ignore the real issue. The past few days highlighted again how the national debate on Covid-19 focuses on a side issue. This may be why our case numbers and deaths still equal or exceed those of the rest of the continent combined. It is also why organised business and others who have pressed for the opening of the economy ignore the issue, which will decide when economic life really begins to revive.
The debate centres on an app that is meant to help health authorities stem infections. People who download it are told whether they have been in contact with anyone else who has it who has tested positive for Covid-19. This has prompted a predictable debate between those who insist the app is a sinister government plan to enslave us by tracking our movements, and those who see it as a crucial public health measure. The liberty lobby seems to have no problem with the fact that smartphones already track our movements. But what is most interesting about this argument is that it highlights the way the debate has handled Covid-19 throughout.
The only issue that sparks argument is where you stand on “the lockdown”. So extreme is this that many people seem unable to grasp any argument about Covid-19 unless they can neatly label the person making it a supporter or opponent of lockdown measures. The media has joined in, parroting the cliché that authorities face a choice between “lives” and “livelihoods”. Organised business has been a vocal participant: after a brief display of unity with government it soon began lobbying against restrictions.
The first problem with this is that it ignores evidence that there is no choice between lives and livelihoods, since research shows the economies of countries that have many cases and deaths tend to shrink more, regardless of how strict their restrictions are. This underlines the point made in this column a while ago, that it is the pandemic that strangles economies and the only way to revive them is to beat Covid-19.
The second is that the success of countries in combating Covid-19 depends not on how strong their lockdowns are but how effective they are at testing and tracing the contacts of infected people. This country has failed to stem the disease. Current cases, which we are told to celebrate as a sign that the danger is receding, are still way above the numbers considered a deadly outbreak in some other countries. The key reason for failure is that laboratory backlogs and other weaknesses have ensured that a large number of tests did not help much to stem cases.
Given Covid-19’s potential for damage, we should have been debating how to ensure that testing and tracing was effective. If organised business wants a thriving economy it should have devoted the energy it spent lobbying for an end to restrictions on badgering the government into getting testing and tracing right so that case numbers reduce and damage to the economy is limited.
The argument about the app illustrates this. It is an attempt to fix the tracing problem but there is no debate about whether it will really do that. Since it depends on a level of smartphone use, which is unlikely in townships and shack settlements, it is, ironically, most likely to protect people who frequent suburban shops and restaurants. Instead, we have the same old argument between those who want restrictions and those who don’t.
As long as this persists, testing and tracing will not be fixed, Covid-19 will not be controlled and the economy will continue to suffer.
• Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg.
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